Miles and Miles
by aRegularJo
Summary: Sara returns a favor. NS, but Saracentric. COMPLETE!
1. 1

Disclaimer: Don't own anyone recognizable.

Spoilers: None, AU past _Nesting Dolls_

Summary: Sara returns a favor.

The woman was very tiny, five three and one hundred and four pounds in socks. She was extremely pretty and earthy—not the hemp-wearing hippie sort of earthy, but she wore tawny, natural colors and little makeup. When she wore makeup, it was usually just bronzer and a little gold eye shadow and brown mascara. Though she was very natural, she wasn't a vegan, or anything like that—she was wearing a buttery brown leather bomber jacket over her chic designer jeans and deep red raw silk shirt.

She was very pretty, and did not look her forty-five years. She had long auburn tangles, and gorgeous dark eyes, and the face shape that ran high on her father's side: small eyes and high forehead, narrow nose and prominent cheekbones, thin lips and tiny chin with a gap in between small front teeth. She did not think she was particularly attractive, but her husband had thought she was striking. He was of German-Welsh descent and both their daughters looked liked him: dark ash blonde, nearly brown hair, and variations-on-blue eyes. Jules' skin was closer to her mother's; it was tawny where her mother's was olive. Grace was a fairer beige tone and burnt easily.

She twisted the wedding ring that she now wore on a chain around her neck. Thom had been out of the picture since the girls were three, dead since they were eleven. Still, she had loved him once, and he was the father of her girls. She owed that much to him.

The bench was very cold; staring at her watch, she realized it was nearly seven AM. She wondered why she had been sitting out there for so long, why she couldn't just go inside the building. She had come earlier that night, at ten; but had left because she chickened out. She had returned forty-five minutes ago, changed and showered and determined.

Luckily, she ran out of time. Sara came out of the building, willowy and sad and everything Lilly remembered. Her cousin didn't see her, instead walking on past. Lilly called out, "Sara. Sara Sidle."

Sara turned. She looked….okay. Sara had never looked good, she was too damaged and fragile and tough to look good. But she looked more adjusted. Shock and surprise and a blink of happiness registered on her face when she saw Lilly. "Lillith." She said. "What are you doing here?" It had been years since they had seen each other. She didn't move towards her, but that was still a good sign. Lilly blinked. She hadn't seen Sara as an adult ever; she had had to call her father just to know where Sara was living. She was shocked to see how much they looked alike—the only difference was twelve years and coloring.

"I…..we….I need to talk. To you. And it's Lilly. It always has been." The last part came out more like a reprimand than Lilly would have preferred. Lilly felt lame and immature, especially since she had more than ten years on her cousin and had bossed her around when they were growing up. "Is there somewhere we can go….to eat ..breakfast, or anything? And talk?"

"Yeah, there's a Denny's around the corner. We can go there." Sara didn't move. She used to her shoulder to signify the direction of the Denny's.

"Could you give me a lift? I took a taxi here."

"Where are you staying?"

"At a Marriott Courtyard. I'm just here through tomorrow…..well, tonight now. It's not the Strip, but it's not seedy or anything."

"Alright….Will you need a ride back there? After the breakfast?"

"Well, you'll probably need your sleep. I can just take a taxi again."

"Alright. If that suits you."

"Yeah. Let's go eat."

They made minimal small talk on the way to the Denny's and got a booth which they sat on opposite sides of. Lilly ordered an omelet and Sara got fruit-drenched pancakes. Finally, Sara, realizing her cousin needed_ asked_ why she had flown in from Sacramento, said, "What's new with you? Is everything alright?"

This was Lilly's invitation. "No." she paused for the dramatic bit, timing she had learned in high school. "It's a long story," and she slumped back heavily and her pretense of drama eroded. "About…six months ago, I was promoted and would be transferred to London. It was an _amazing_ opportunity. I put the house on the market; the girls weren't too upset because they would be going to England. The house got snapped up pretty quickly. We should have been leaving about three weeks from today.

"However, I was feeling…ill. That's the only way to describe it. I went to the doctor. She ran some diagnostics, and told me I had cancer in my liver and pancreas. She gave me nine months about five months ago.

"I was stuck. I got an extended leave of absence and turned down the promotion immediately. The house was already in escrow, though, the sale has to go through. I began looking into treatment plans with my doctor; she highly recommended a local clinic here called Grace House. It's very small, most people come from around here but they've got some effective cutting-edge treatment. You stay in the clinic during treatments, but you go home for a few days at a time. I was talking to my friend from high school, Wendy, and she lives here now—four kids and her sister and her niece live with her, too, though. She said that I could stay with her, problem solved. But another one was created—where do Jules and Grace go? I can't ask Wendy to take them in, and I can't let them see my getting so sick. But I want them near me. Grace suggested they just stay with friends but I need them here and I think they need me." She paused and took a bite of the omelet. "I know, Sara, we've drifted since…everything, but, please, I'm begging only because it's the last thing left: Will you take Grace and Jules in? I will pay you, pay their school tuition bills, everything…. I just need my daughters here."

Sara was extremely quiet. "You've only got four months and you've waited this long for treatment?"

Lilly shrugged. "I've been getting treatment—my hair right now is a wig. It's just I need something stronger. And I don't want to die while living in a hotel."

"Why didn't you call earlier?" Sara's eyes showed compassion, something she always had had trouble expressing but could feel to the bone. "God, Lilly, I don't know what to say. What a horrible horrible thing."

Lilly's eyes dropped. "I know. It's hard sometimes, like when the girls went to prom about three months after my diagnosis. It hurt so bad and it ached. I felt like I was railing and wailing against everything—I won't watch them get married. Or even graduate high school for that matter." Her eyes swelled and she shut them until she pulled herself together. "I don't know what to do. I'm going to die soon and I feel horrible uprooting them two weeks before their senior year just so they can watch me die. I feel so _sel_fish. But it honestly is probably the only solution I can think of. But, Sara, they're going to be left in pretty good shape, between my estate and their father's. I can have the estate pay you…posthumously."

"I don't need payment." Sara said. This was the first time in a long while she had acted with rash passion. "I've been wanting an apartment closer to work, anyways. I'll get something more permanent—I've been living here for six years and my condo can be liquidated. I'll start looking for something like a house soon. How soon until school starts? Do you mind that I work evenings? I mean, I can get home before they go to school, sleep while they're at school and then be up when they get home through a little after their dinner. But I can't watch them while they're sleeping or anything."

"They're big girls." Lilly felt hopeful for the first time since accepting her impending death. School starts in about four weeks. I've been looking around the Vegas area—I want to send them to a small, private school where they can receive more support. This year's gonna be tough. Jules will need a swim team and Grace plays tennis very competitively. I think I found a school called the St. Christopher School."

"I've heard of it—it's near work." Sara said, "It's very good."

"Good." Lilly was relieved. "I'm calling the principal today—seeing if I can get them in. I'm sure there's forms, but hopefully in light of circumstances—" she stopped, "Anyways, Sara, thank you so very much."

"No problem. I'll start looking for a house. Do the girls have a car? And, what are your rules and things?" Sara yawned suddenly.

"I'm sorry, you've been up so long." Lilly apologized. "We'll talk later. I've got a book at home I keep for house sitters that I can give you. It's got all my rules and stuff."

"Here, I'll drive you back to your hotel."

"Thank you," Lilly said gratefully.

An idea hit Sara, "You know—why don't you just come live with me, and the girls? Wendy's house sounds very crowded—you'd be more involved with them and everything. It would be more like I'm just letting you stay instead of taking over your role."

Lilly almost couldn't believe what she was hearing. Then, she deflated. "That's a wonderful offer. But I'm afraid it would be hard. I need you to step in with my role—do the yelling and corralling. Not that they'll ever really need it. But I'll be so weak."

"We can work it out." Sara said confidently.

"Well—then—yes—thank you."

As they sat in the car, Sara felt compelled to make small talk, "How have your brothers been doing?"

Lilly smiled. "They're good. Dan is living in Maine now with his wife, Katrina, and they have three kids, two boys and a girl. He wants to move back to the West Coast so they're looking around Tahoe for after their youngest graduates in two years. Doug married Diana when they went to Oregon together for college and she got pregnant. They've grown up, two kids in college and they run a bed and breakfast."

"So they're happy?"

Lilly shrugged, "Yeah, I guess. Turn left here." They pulled up to the hotel and Lilly slid out. "Sara, I just have to tell you how incredibly grateful that you'll do this. Especially after what happened between my family and you and Troy."

Sara waved a hand to signal _no problem_ and said, "No. It's okay. I was mad then but I can understand now. Did you know, that when I went to Harvard your father gave me money to help with tuition? Later, when I went to grad school, he helped me with rent and cosigned for my student loans. Your parents have more than made up for everything, not that they needed to. And, besides, Lilly, you were at college the entire time."

"I was twenty minutes away and I came home all the time," Lilly said. It was a slight exaggeration, but unfortunately mostly true. She stepped back. "I'll be calling you later, Sara, and you can meet the girls. Thank you, so much." Her eyes welled up and she could barely say, "Bye."

Like it? Hate it? Think I should continue? You know the dril...Thanks!


	2. 2

Disclaimer: Don't own anyone recognizable.

Spoilers: None, AU past _Nesting Dolls_

Thank you all so much for your reviews! I really appreciate them.

Later that night, Sara poured herself a cup of coffee in the break room, contemplating how much things had changed in the last twelve hours. She had called a realtor and put her condo up on the market and requested a four-bedroom house close to the lab, the St. Christopher School, and Grace House, and she would like to move in within four weeks. The realtor had scoffed but had been determined, "We'll try. No promises. You're picky," Sara didn't much like the woman, but she had a reputation for getting things done. She'd called later, with four selections. Sara made an appointment to look at them the next day.

Sara absentmindedly stirred a sugar packet into the sludgy coffee for taste and tried to remember meeting the girls, or any memory with Lilly in it. She knew she had met the girls once, when they were staying with Nathan and Maggie for a week while Lilly was at a conference and Nathan had brought them down to Chinatown to meet Sara. Sara had been twenty-two at the time, the girls were kindergartners. They were big-eyed and wispy-haired and very quiet. Jules, who was called Julie then, had been extremely wiry, no extra fat on her at all; Grace was shorter and had a softer, rounded shape. Grace had barely eaten the Chinese food and they both ate a lot of dessert. Before that, she remembered a baptism notice; Sara had been about seventeen. Sara had been at school in Boston and Uncle Nathan graciously paid for a plane ticket so she could come visit for a three-day weekend. She remembered Leslie's funeral a year before their birth, and Lilly's wedding. Sara had been fifteen when this happened; she was living with the Macallisters and dreaming about Harvard.

She remembered when she was very small and her parents, who had been too young when Troy was born and hadn't matured since, would leave her with Stable Uncle Nathan and His Family, all weekend. Sara would follow Lilly, the cool mature high schooler, around all day, and watch her get ready for her dates at night. The year she was nine, she and Troy, who had been fifteen at the time, moved in since they had nowhere to go. The social worker, named Michael or something, was thrilled to find such an easy solution to the problem. Uncle Nathan was a good man, unlike his brother-in-law, but the family was very poor, with a desperately ill child. He knew, however, how twisted and complicated it would be, but it was there and convenient and Troy wanted to and Troy was sort of scary, so Michael let him have his way.

There weren't enough bedrooms, Leslie and all her equipment had to be on the first floor, and so did Uncle Nathan and Aunt Maggie, in case something happened to her. In order to make that happen, they had converted the dining room downstairs into bedrooms, and they put a rec room upstairs, leaving two bedrooms. The boys all shared a room on the second floor and Lilly cleaned everything out of her bedroom and stacked it neatly in boxes precisely labeled with their contents against one wall so that Sara could have enough room to put her things. Sara had been fascinated with the boxes and she started to carefully snoop through them—her start as a CSI. She was thrilled to be surrounded by all of Lilly's things, even though Lilly was at college, at Berkley, and rarely came home. She found lacy lingerie and funny-shaped objects that she now knew were sex toys that even at that young age she knew her aunt didn't know about, she found diaries that she devoured, she used the dictionary but still couldn't grasp the meaning of the word 'sex' until Aunt Maggie taught her the birds and the bees—then she wondered for two years why Lilly had not gotten pregnant.

Still, her innate ability to know when to keep her mouth shut did not apply to the boys' things. Snooping and finding out secrets was addicting; she knew about Doug's girlfriend Diana's abortion and the times everyone came home right before curfew and snuck back out. Still, she never _found _anything of the boys'; if she had, she would have kept it and asked what it was. This happened, fatefully, one day. When she was snooping in Troy, Dan, and Doug's room for Christmas presents, she found a package of white powder underneath the bed Troy used. She had shown it to Uncle Nathan. He threw a fit and called Social Services; they took Troy away. Sara could remember the fight clearly—it was a memory she tried to suppress. Troy had rarely talked to her since. They had last spoken over ten years ago, when she found him to try and create a relationship. He was married, a recovering coke addict and dealer, and lived in a trailer park outside LA. He told her he wanted nothing to do with his pretty Harvard-graduate sister. The way he said it made her feel dirty. She had gotten over it, or tried to, but it was still painful. Six months later, as Dan and Doug got to be more rebellious teenagers, and Leslie just got worse and more babylike, and the case came to trial and her mother was convicted, they had told Sara sadly they just couldn't handle it anymore. The same man who had handled their case in the first place, with whom Aunt Maggie had fought to keep Sara and Troy, came and put her in a home with the Nelsons.

Though Aunt Maggie and Uncle Nathan were very poor and often lived grittily, they were a family, and Sara and Troy had never been part of a family. Their hometown was a small town, but the Sidle name had been trash. Sara and Troy were pitied by the upstairs neighbor and their teachers and the grocer. They were tough and mean kids—Sara's earliest, and fondest, memories were of getting lollipops from the nurses at the hospital while their mother was being patched back together. They had lived a violent, hand-to-mouth existence with no thought of the future, of doing the right thing, of dreaming of something better. Living with Uncle Nathan, Troy was required to go to school every day. Sara had to be taught that smacking people and throwing things when you were mad wasn't right. She had always been curious and she became a voracious reader; a thrilled Aunt Maggie took her to the library every other afternoon. She behavior had been early—she dove obsessively into books as an escape the way her brother and mother used drugs and the way her father had used alcohol. Still, everything she had learned in her first eight years had to be erased. Aunt Maggie had tentatively talked about getting her 'help' but Sara steadfastly refused. She didn't need help, she insisted. Still, Aunt Maggie took her to a counselor, at the insistence of the court-appointed social worker. Sara hated it. The one good thing about leaving her aunt was that the next family forgot to keep making appointments. Nobody in the situation was wealthy; Sara slid easily through the cracks.

"Hey, Sara," Nick said, coming in to the lounge and knocking her out of her memories. "What's up?"

Though it had been several months, she still was not adjusted to _not_ having Warrick and Nick—especially Nick though she was loath to admit it—around. She missed talking to them and their teasing. She missed bouncing ideas off of them and not being ashamed to have hypotheses, which she always was around Grissom. When she worked with Catherine and Grissom—Grissom especially—she always felt that was the junior, more inferior CSI, which made her feel awkward. With Grissom, she was always living up to some invisible, impossible expectations, and her therapist had told her how this always set her up for failure. She knew that she could never be that ideal. Her relationship with Greg was slightly maternal, which was sort of weird, but she was proud of him and proud of what she had taught him. She adored Greg; he was like a younger brother, but sometimes it was hard to deal with his naiveté and she always felt that she should be a model CSI, so that his wonderful idealistic innocence was maintained and he didn't screw up royally. When working with Sofia, she felt that she was Catherine in the early days of the Sara-and-Catherine relationship, before they had warmed up and respected each other—at least pre-Eddie. But with Nick and Warrick, she felt like equals. Paired with either of them worked extremely well, when they worked all three together she felt like they were the Three Musketeers or something equally cool. They would always get the case solved; they worked perfectly together. Sara had come to view those two as good friends. They still saw each other occasionally, sometimes worked a scene together. Those comments were often the only times that she could laugh at crime scenes, and always felt like a hidden guilty pleasure. But they no longer ate breakfasts together and only went out together to visit a club or watch movies when she had a night off and they got done with their shift. She missed it.

"A lot, actually." She took a breath. "My cousin—we were very close a long time ago, I lived with her family for a while—came into town. She's been diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer and is moving to Vegas for some treatments and wants me to take in her seventeen-year-old twin daughters and I've agreed. My condo isn't big enough so I'm house-hunting now too." She felt confused and fuzzy, almost like she had been drinking. The enormity of the situation was hitting, hard. She put her forehead on her palm and rolled her neck. She listened to each vertebrae slowly crack.

"God," Nick sat down next to her and peeled the lid off of a yogurt. "When did she hit you with this?"

"This morning. After shift." She stood up and stretched. She had come in early with a purpose: "I've got to go talk to Mia about the DNA from the breaking and entering I processed last night."

"Okay," Nick said, touching her elbow as she started to leave. "If you need help moving, or need someone to talk to, I'm here, you know."

"Yeah. Thanks." She said briefly and smiling lightly. "You're a good friend Nicky." He shook his head, blushing, and she headed towards DNA.

Before she got there, though, her cell rang. "Sidle." She said automatically.

"Hey, it's me." Lilly said, "Are you at work? I didn't know when your shift started."

"Well, yeah, I'm at work, but shift hasn't started." She cleared her throat.

"I was just calling to say that the principal at St. Chris's admitted Jules and Grace. They're packing as we speak—getting their rooms put away and everything. I was wondering—maybe you want to talk to them?"

"Yeah, I've got fifteen or twenty minutes." Sara glanced at the clock.

"Okay—um. Here's Jules," there were some scuffling and sharp words.

"Hi," Jules said. Her voice was guarded, almost grudging, but determined and nervous.

"Hey," Sara said in her too-bright voice—the one she hated. "Hi."

"I'm—Julia," she said, "How are you?"

"I'm--I'm good." Sara said, "I'm at work now—I work nights."

"Yeah. Mom mentioned that."

"Oh. What else has she told you?"

"You live in Vegas. I've heard the thing about your mom and dad and my grandparents. That's it. What's she said about me?"

"You like to—" Sara took a potshot because she couldn't remember which twin was which, "swim. You're good at it. You're a senior in a few weeks."

"Yeah," Jules said politely. "I'm training right now."

"Are you—going for a big meet or something?" Sara leaned against the wall.

"I don't know. I'm just…. training. I have to find a team in Las Vegas." She sounded disappointed.

"Well, it's a big city; there's going to be something. I can—check it out for you. Do you want me to?"

"Sure. That'd be nice." Jules seemed to pause, "So, you're forensics expert?"

"I'm a CSI—I collect evidence, and analyze it to solve crimes."

"Murders?" the way she said it sounded slightly distasteful.

"Usually."

"Is it gross?"

"You try not to let it be." Sara said.

"Do you see the dead bodies?"

"Yeah. A lot, actually, cause each murder there's evidence on the body." Sara realized she was probably coming off as a science freak.

"And you work nights?"

"Better pay." Sara said lamely. There wasn't any pay difference.

"You work every night?"

"Most nights. I get probably one night a week off."

"What times do you work?"

"11 PM—7 AM. I have to pull a lot of overtime, though, especially when a case is hot."

"Eight hours? Overnight?" she sounded skeptical. "That fun? I mean, do you like it?"

"I like it. It's like a puzzle, or a riddle, and I really like the science. And when I solve a case, it's just this awesome rush. I sort of feel that I'm helping out the best way I can. I just like it." Sara ended lamely. She almost volunteered to let her come to the lab sometime, but she decided that didn't sound like Jules' style. "So, what else do you like to do?"

Sara could almost hear the shrug. "I don't know. I honestly do a lot. I can't really think of anything." She paused. "I'm a lifeguard. I work a lot. And I guess I do volunteery type things, you know? Like, I volunteer at the hospital every Sunday. I've worked with the United Way on some stuff. I do a lot of schoolwork, too."

"Favorite subject?"

"History, Government, or English. I think you'll like Grace better. She likes physics and bio and anatomy and stuff. Not so much chemistry though."

"Do you guys know where you're going next year, or what you're studying?"

"Not really. I want to double-major in history and government and go to law school or grad school or something. Grace wants to be a pharmacist, psychologist or a nurse administrator. She did that at a career-exploration job-shadowing thing we went to and got really interested in it. She also wants to maybe be a biomedical engineer."

"Those are really diverse."

"Yeah, we're pretty different academically. But it's what we want to do."

"That…That's cool." Sara said.

There was some scuffling on the other end and then Jules said, "Sara, Mom wants to talk to you. So, I'll talk to you later, or something?"

"Yeah, sounds great." Jules quickly handed the phone over.

"I'm assuming that you need to start working soon, so I'm going to let you go. Listen, just call me when you've found a realtor, and I'll have my financial advisor contact you to start paying you for the house and things—"

Sara waved a hand in the air though she knew that her cousin wasn't standing there. "Lilly, don't worry about it. Just start packing and get everything ready; I'll call you as soon as I have a house, and you can start shipping your things and finding a moving company."

"Thank you again, Sara." Lilly said.

"Really, Lilly, please stop thanking me and apologizing."

"Right. Sorry" Lilly said and giggled. "I'll let you go. Have a fun evening at work."

"Thanks." Sara clicked off her phone.


	3. 3

Spoilers: None, AU past all of season 5.

Thank you all for reading!

Shift passed quickly and busily—a double homicide and two breaking and enterings came in. She was on the verge of pulling a double—her third one in four days—when she remembered her appointment with Addie, the realtor. She looked at the clock and rubbed her eyes. Standing, she turned to Sofia, with whom she was working that night. "I've got to go. I have an appointment with my realtor at eight. I need to shower. I smell like death."

"Realtor?" Sofia said, smiling confusedly and speaking with her funny half-British accent. Someday, maybe if they got to be closer coworkers, Sara vowed to ask her about that. "Are you leaving Vegas?"

"No, I'm just….upgrading, you could say. I'm sorry. I've really got to go." In the doorway, she paused, "Listen…could you not tell Grissom that I'm house hunting?"

"Sure." Sofia smiled confusedly again. "Can I ask why….or would that be im_pos_ing?"

"No, it's fine…I'm just having some family things happen and some relatives need to move in with me. I just would prefer if Grissom not know."

"Sure. Whatever you'd like," Sofia said graciously.

"Kay. See ya later." Sara quickly went to the locker room. It was already seven-twenty; she would just shower here and use her change of clothes. She dried her hair quickly, skipped makeup, and put on her Paper Denim & Cloth jeans, a snug-fitting pink t-shirt, and a trendy royal-blue velvet blazer she had bought on a whim last weekend. Pointy-toed kitten heels completed the look. She ran out of the lab, waving at Greg, and drove quickly to the first house.

Since she arrived eight minutes early, she used the makeup kit she kept in the car to put on eyebrow pencil, eyeliner, mascara, a loose powder, and swiped lip-gloss across her lips. Addie's car pulled up next to hers as she stowed the kit underneath her passenger-side seat. Many thought Sara didn't give a damn what she looked like, but Sara liked to think she was a constant surprise to those she let close.

Addie was trim and short, with a clean-lined navy pantsuit and a chunky necklace. "Hi, you must be Sara," She did not look like the shark-realtor Nick had once described when he bought a townhouse with her.

"Yeah, you're Addie?"

"Pleasure." They extended hands and shook. "Now, you're a CSI that works nights?"

"Yeah, my friend Nick referred me."

"I remember Nick." Her smile was slightly bemused, and fleetingly Sara wondered if Nick had seduced her or something. "Now, you've got quite a list of demands: near the LVCSL, St. Christopher's, and Grace House Holistic Treatments? And four bedrooms?"

"Yeah. My cousin was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer and needs the treatments from Grace House. She's a single parent with two high school aged daughters. They'll all be moving in with me. I have a small condo; it won't hold four women. I also need my condo sold very quickly."

"Great. We can do this." Addie said. She quickly explained the situation with the houses: it sucked. Vegas's real estate market was booming—houses weren't going up fast enough. Finding a house with all those demands would be difficult, "but we'll try." Addie reassured her as they walked up to the first house. "This has a great open-plan layout on the first floor—lots of room, a fireplace, a formal living room, tons of amenities," she certainly was enthusiastic about her job. Sara deemed the house nice, but a little small.

The second house was a hacienda-style ranch, also very new. However, it only had three bedrooms. "I need four bedrooms. That's like the one requirement," Sara explained.

"Alright," Addie nodded. "I understand. Let's go onto the third house."

The next house was an open-plan Mediterranean-style that Sara immediately fell in love with. The outside was a gorgeous stone-and-stucco, with a Spanish roof done in gold and rust tiles. It was extremely pricey, and out in Henderson, but about ten years old, so it was fairly close to actual Vegas—Sara didn't really think she could live in bona fide suburbia without this sort of rationalization. Inside, it was open and fairly airy; the previous owners had painted all the rooms a cheerful lemon yellow. There was a main-floor master suite—perfect for Lilly, in case she became too weak to climb stairs; a huge kitchen with places for pots to hang above an island and two dishwashers and a large table space and everything—it was horrendously decorated, though; a big gorgeous great room with huge ceilings; a study with amazing built-in, glassed-in bookcases; another den upstairs; a dining room near the kitchen with an elaborate Tiffany-style chandelier; a utility room near the two-car garage; a separate laundry room; three bathrooms; and two porches, one screened-in. There were two fireplaces, one in the master suite. All of the upstairs bedrooms had walk-in closets, and the basement had a finished rec room with a small bar setup—perfect for teenagers. There weren't really any trees, because it was Vegas, but that was all right with Sara. The gravel yard was very well-kept. It was in a convenient part of Henderson—little mini-marts and fast food restaurants were only a few blocks away, but it was still very nice and filled with families. Granted, the house's price made Sara gasp, but Lilly was going to chip in. Plus, Sara had a ton of savings; she could afford it. She turned to Addie and said, "I'll take it. Now what do I do?"

"Already? You don't want to look at the fourth?"

"No, this is good."

Addie quickly walked her through the rest of it: bank, loans, mortgages, how much the down payment would cost. Sara cringed slightly at the price, but reminded herself that it was worth it. She called Lilly's home and left a message that said to call her back after seven, and told Addie to put her condo on the market. She went home, threw clothes on a chair in her room and collapsed onto her bed.


	4. 4

Thank you to everyone whose still reading this—school's out, so I can write more, but I'm not entirely thrilled with the direction it seems to be taking—so…just hang in there, please!

Sara woke, extremely hungry, at seven-fifteen. She padded into the kitchen and started boiling water for Ramen noodles. As she was stirring the block of noodles into the water, the phone rang. She grabbed it and pressed _talk_. "Hello?" she said.

"Hey, Sara, it's Lilly." Her cousin sounded smiley. "You found a house?"

"Uh, yeah." Sara cleared her throat. "It's great, Lilly. I'm sure you're going to love it. At first I was just looking for something…for this year, or two years, but it's definitely a more permanent house than just that."

"What's it look like?"

Sara explained the house, "You'd better bring all of your kitchen things; I'll take digital pictures tomorrow and email them to you later." After she talked about the bedrooms she said, "I was thinking that you can have the first-floor master suite. It'll be easier for you to get around in. There's a fireplace and a private bathroom and everything. And tell the girls that their bedrooms have walk-in closets, too, and the three of us have a huge bathroom upstairs to share. There are two sinks. It's just wonderful, it's an amazing old house." They discussed the rooms and furniture for the next forty minutes. Lilly wrote down Sara's address because she had allowed the girls to order bedroom accessories from Pottery Barn Teen and ship them to Sara's apartment. They also decided on a moving date three weeks in the future. "I'll talk to Addie, make sure everything gets cleared by then. I'll take the week off of work to get everything moved and settled in." they segued off of that, and began discussing paint colors until Sara glanced at the clock and realized she had less than an hour to get to work. They hung up, and Sara rushed around, taking a quick shower and drying, but not straightening, her naturally wavy hair. She put some makeup on and threw on the jeans, shirt, and blazer she had tossed on a chair. She hurriedly left her apartment and prayed that she wouldn't be late.

Still, when she dashed into the break room five minutes before the start of shift, Grissom raised an eyebrow and said, "That was close. We were wondering where you were."

She shrugged and sat down next to Greg and across from Sofia. "I still have five minutes."

Greg looked at her strangely, "Didn't you _leave _in that outfit this morning?"

She nodded and was purposely vague. "Busy day. I didn't feel like finding another outfit when I hadn't really worn this to work." Greg raised an eyebrow but decided not to say anything in front of Grissom.

"Okay," Grissom said. "It's a slow night so far. Greg, you're with me at what looks like an accidental death at an apartment. Sara and Sofia, finish up paperwork."

They began to walk out and Sara followed Grissom. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," he said, sounding surprised. "Let's go to my office."

As soon as they were inside his office, she turned to him, "I know it's short notice, but I need the week of August 11th through August 17th off of work."

He looked surprised. "Vacation?" he asked.

"We'll call it that." she said. When his facial features indicated he wanted more, she relented, "I'm buying a house and need that week to move."

"A house?" Grissom said. "Why?"

"Because I haven't lived in a house since I was sixteen and I realized that's more than half my life, and I want a house."

"All right. Just bring me the vacation papers and I'll find Nick or Warrick or someone to cover. Don't forget to fill out change of address papers."

"Right. Thanks." Sara walked off to the locker room to put her purse away.

Greg was sitting on the bench and looked around furtively for others when she came in, "Sara Sidle, you sneak, are you seeing someone?" he asked. He grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

"What? No." she said. "Why?"

"You came in wearing the same outfit you left in. I was thinking maybe you were at someone's house? And you just told Grissom that you were moving. In with the boyfriend, perhaps?"

Sara cringed mentally; she couldn't believe that she hadn't shut the door. "No, I'm not, Greg. I bought my own house. I just had a lot of things to do yesterday, I didn't home till nearly two and didn't get a ton of sleep."

"All riight." Greg said in a voice that implied he didn't believe her. She ignored him, walking down to the conference center to finish up her paperwork. It had backed up considerably in the last several weeks.

She was a little shocked to see Warrick grudgingly filling out paperwork at the glass-topped table, and Nick was standing near him, rifling through filing cabinets. "What are you guys still doing here?" she asked, finding her last case folder and spinning it onto the table.

"Nothing to do tonight, so we thought we'd get this damn paperwork outta the way before we _do _have something to do but Cath gets on our back about paperwork." Warrick explained, tiredly flipping a page.

"So Catherine went home?"

"Yeah. She wanted to watch Lindsey sleep. That's what she called it. I don't think she ever sees her anymore."

"Well, when Ecklie gives you the only shift where your daughter's awake and _not_ at school…." Warrick's voice trailed off.

"That must suck," Sara said sympathetically, signing her name in five places before going back to fill out the forms.

"Hey, how'd the house-hunting go, Sar?" Nick questioned kindly.

"I got one," she smiled quickly. "It's really close to the lab."

"Buying a house?" Warrick said. "Any reason you're dumping the apartment?"

"My cousin and her daughters are moving in with me." Sara said. "My cousin needs cancer treatment, there's some high-tech facility near here, she wants the girls with her."

"Adopting a family?"

"Helping my own." Sara said. She looked down. "Long story—Lilly—my cousin—I lived with them for quite a while, when I was very young. Returning a favor, I guess."

"When are you guys moving in?" Warrick asked.

"Three weeks," Sara replied, raising her eyebrows and swallowing to show she knew it was quick. "Lilly's treatment….." her voice trailed off.

"Well, if you need any help—we can lift things, like couches and entertainment sets and stuff." Nick said, and Warrick nodded. "Just call."

"Thanks guys. I will."

"Thank God, I'm out." Warrick said, "I'll give these to Cath tonight." He stood, shrugging on his jacket, "See ya guys. Nick, you heading out soon?"

"Yeah, I've got this report to finish. See ya tonight." He sauntered out.

Sara stood up, retrieving the rest of the files she hadn't finished. Nick glanced up, amused. "How many cases are you backlogged with?"

"About seven or eight, I think." She shrugged. "Not enough investigators on a shift, not enough time to do paperwork." She set the stack down with a resounding _thud_.

Just about then, Sofia, who was supposed to be in the conference room finishing her paperwork—she actually _liked_ paperwork, something that baffled the rest of the CSIs—poked her head in. "Sara, we got a call. Grissom wants us to take it." She looked at Sara's pile of papers, "Damn, you're backed up."

"Yeah, well, I don't like to use my overtime up doing _paper_work." Sara said. She stood, though, and began to file the folders. "What's the case?"

"Dead body in a motel called the Tropical Oasis. Vega suspects she's a prostitute. I wanna drive"

"Great," Sara said grimly. "I'll see you later, Nick."

"Yeah. See ya, Sofia," Nick continued to fill out forms as the two women headed to the locker room to grab their kits and coats.


	5. 5

Still not sure where it's going or if I like where it's going... but I'm trying! Please keep reading and reviewing; I love tohear what you think! Lyssa

The next few weeks passed incredibly quickly for Sara. She guessed she was getting about forty hours of sleep a week—about five or so a day, some days much less. The day she had off every week she slept for about twelve hours, throwing her average out of whack.

She and Lilly talked every day. Sara tried to convince Lilly several times to bring her own furniture, to decorate it the way she saw fit. "I'm no good at any of that," Sara tried to explain, "So, come on, just bring your couches and living room furniture."

"Sara, I can't," Lilly said, her voice thick but forceful. "It's your house. You bought it. I know I'm not living there for long. You're going to hopefully be there for a while, your personality and tastes have to show through. I'll bring stuff for the kitchen, my table and things, but it's _your_ house. If you would like to borrow my furniture, I'll bring some stuff to fill the dining room and the screened-in porch, but when I'm on my deathbed I'm making you promise to buy your own furniture."

It sort of disturbed Sara how her cousin was so open about her impending death, instead of being fearful or worried or mad, which were the emotions Sara would experience. Also, though she loved the house, she wasn't going to _stay_ in it by herself when the girls were at college and Lilly was dead. She liked it a lot, but it was so big. "Fine," she huffed. "I'll buy all the living room furniture and we'll use your things to decorate the kitchen and dining room. Bring a desk for your computer for the den; I like my computer in my room where it is now. If you have any nice, formal-type chairs, bring them for the 'study' We won't decorate the deck now because it's nearly winter. And that's an unimportant room, compared to living room and bedrooms."

So Sara was forced to go to furniture shops—Crate & Barrel, IKEA, Pottery Barn. She bought a couch that she liked and decided her regular entertainment center would fit for now. She talked to Grace twice and Jules twice, and she received several boxes from labeled 'Oasis Fringe' and 'Vintage Bloom,' and there were others labeled things like 'Bohemian bed cover.' Sara never had sheets with a name brand as a high schooler—it almost shocked her. She did now, of course, but they were plain dark purple. They were nothing like what the teens had ordered. She went to the websites and checked them out. Apparently, her cousin had really sprung; Sara had no idea how much bedding for teenagers cost. However, she got sidetracked by the actual and spent her own small fortune on new sheets for herself there. Addie walked her through the house-buying steps quickly. Her condo sold quickly, to a couple ten years younger than her looking for a starter home. She thought it was peculiar that A) she was ten years older than people who were _married_ and B) that they considered her tiny condo a good 'starter home.'

Finally, her last shift before Moving Week came. She clocked out, already feeling like she missed the place. Her condo was packed up, and Greg was coming after shift to help her move things. She decided that renting a moving van was a stupid luxury; the house was less than thirty minutes away from the condo. She had been feeling guilty lately; she and Greg had become very good friends when he was studying to become a CSI, and Sara would take him out to breakfast or meet him for lunch once a week to quiz him. The tradition had continued. Since Sara had started buying a house and preparing for her cousins, they hadn't gone out to eat.

The doorbell rang just as Sara finished tying back her hair and pulling on her favorite pair of yoga pants and a sherbet-colored beater. "Coming," she yelled, shoving her feet into flip-flops. "Nick," she said, slightly startled to see him at her door. "Come in. What's up?" She led the way to her living room, which was dissected and packed away.

"Greg said that you were moving stuff into your new house today. I hope you don't mind if Warrick and I decided to help out. I brought my truck."

"You have a truck?" she said it in a teasing, lilting banter, but she honestly didn't know that. "I thought you said you were too cheap to buy anything if the department was going to give you a car?"

"I snapped out of that." He grinned and puffed out his chest, slipping into his Stereotypical Good Ol' Boy persona, which he brought out for laughs every once in a while, in an endearing sort of way. Nick was more than that, and Sara knew it. "Every good Texan has a truck."

"Cowboy regalia, too?"

"Boots _and_ hat." He said proudly. He held up the case of beer he had been holding. "Can I put this in the fridge?"

"Sure." She frowned slightly. "Is that some sort of housewarming gift or something?"

Nick gave her a mock-pained look, "Sara. You're moving today. Once everything is moved, you eat pizza and beer on your floor. As a celebration."

"Really?" she said sardonically. "I thought that was only when moving into your first apartment in New York City when you're twenty-two."

"Sara, this isn't _Friends_." Nick said patiently. "Though I do know that you have every complete-season volume."

Sara's mouth opened involuntarily. "How in the hell did you know that? I mean, I'm not ashamed—but how did you know?" She grinned.

Nick smirked, "Greg. That man has a mouth."

Sara rolled her eyes, "Don't I know it" then, realizing what she had said, she clapped a hand over her mouth. "That came out _really_ wrong."

"No, I get your point. I think," Nick smiled as the doorbell rang.

"Coming," Sara hollered, walking down the hall and opening the door. "Hey, Greg"

"Hey," he said, "I brought beer. And I saw Nick's truck in your parking lot."

She pulled his arm to bring him inside. "Yeah, Nick and Warrick decided to help, too. And Nick beat you to bringing the beer." They were in the kitchen by that point, "By the way—no drinking till we get everything moved. That's a rule."

"Fine, fine, fine," Greg grumbled, sticking the beer in Sara's fridge. "Got any food left? You promised food."

"_Now_ I know why it was so easy to drag you over here." She grinned. "I think I have a cantaloupe."

"That's not food," Greg grumbled, pulling Chinese takeout from her fridge and popping it into the microwave. Nick rolled his eyes. Luckily, the doorbell rang, and the three of them together managed to be loud enough that Warrick heard them telling him to come in.

"Hey guys," Warrick said, tucking his keys into his pocket. "Chinese food, Sanders?"

Greg looked at the lukewarm plate. "I forgot Sara's a vegetarian," he said, tilting the plate towards Sara, "You want it?"

She shook her head. "My father always made me save leftovers—I still do that but I never eat them. They're so gross."

Greg gave her a funny look, "So what did you eat in college?"

Sara shrugged and smiled, "Take out? Cafeteria food?"

Greg wrinkled his nose, "Gross," he said, and everyone else laughed.

"Alright," Sara said, "As you systematically eat your way through my Chinese leftovers, we're going to get organized."

"You're in charge," Warrick said, stretching against the counter.

"Perfect," she smiled. "Okay, I've had everything packed up. We'll start with boxes—everyone will take boxes from the living room, then bedroom, et cetera, and we'll caravan to the new house. Once we get all the boxes over we'll put your big, strong muscles to use and undo the television and the couch and the furniture." Sara grinned, then faltered, "Listen, guys, if you want to go home, and sleep, or anything like that, I'll understand. I've got a couple of days before everyone comes out here."

"Sara, we wouldn't be here if we didn't want to be," Greg replied, a hint of solemnity in his voice.

"Well, then, thanks. I really appreciate it." Sara smiled and gave herself a moment to let everything sink in. "Okay, let's start packing,"

Forty minutes later, they pulled their first loads up to the new house. "Wow, Sara," Greg said appreciatively, "This is an amazing house."

"Can we have a tour first?" Nick asked, pointedly not unloading any boxes.

"Fine. Grab a box first, though, so we can dump them into the living room."

Sara led the way, unlocking the front door. "This is the foyer," she said, pronouncing it properly and awkwardly lifting a wrist to show it off. She flicked a light on, "Over here is the living room—through here, the family room."

"The difference?" Greg cracked.

"Um, different furniture?" Sara wondered out loud. "Is one supposed to be more formal or something?"

"Family room's more formal, maybe like a library or den." Nick said knowledgeably. "Living room's where you put your big-screen."

"Why do you know that?"

He shrugged, "Just something I picked up."

"Alright." Sara quickly led them through the rest of the house. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

Six hours later, they sat exhausted on the family room floor, the remnants of a pizza cooling next to them. Everything was moved in, haphazardly stacked and shoved in the proper room. "This was fun," she commented, stretching until she heard her back pop. "Next time I move, I'm calling you guys."

"We better get going," Greg pointed out, "You two have to be at work in twenty minutes, and I have to work tonight too."

"All right, all right," Nick said, "Have fun this week, Sar. Call us when your family moves in."

"Yeah, I'm getting really nervous," Sara said. "It's Tuesday, we'll be here all day. You guys are all welcome to stop by….move more furniture." She smirked.

"We'll be around," Warrick said, and the guys quickly left.

Left alone with the huge house for the first time, though, Sara could only think _what the hell am I doing_?


	6. 6

Just got back from a family trip to Vegas—plenty of inspiration. I also went back and changed a few things in earlier chapters, once I realized how off-based I was. I've gotten over my bump, and now know exactly what's happening, so stay tuned! Thanks to everyone who's reading and reviewing! lyssa

Sara spent the next few days puttering and on the phone with Lilly. She tried three different arrangements of the dining room table and did things like pick out paint chips. She felt faintly ridiculous and fraudulent doing it—she had no idea what this was about. Lilly consoled her and advised her to pick colors like purple and gold-toned beige accents for her bedroom when Sara decided she wanted something with very rich, dramatic undertones in preferably darker, feminine colors. Lilly told her ruefully that the purple with gold-toned beige accents were probably the only colors that fulfilled those requirements. She picked ocean tones for Jules and rich purples, mauves, magentas, and pinks for Grace, per their mother's instructions. The kitchen was very ugly, so she picked a tile mosaic for the backsplash in the kitchen, blue-green paint for the rest of it, stainless steel countertops, and frosted-glass maplewood cabinets. Lilly seemed like she would be excellent at designing and she decided to wait before picking more things out.

Tuesday morning she awoke very early and went on a run before showering. She loved running; it was her way to pound out all her thoughts and frustrations and anxieties. It was already very hot. The girls and Lilly were supposed to arrive around one but they were calling ahead of time. She cleaned a little bit more and paced a lot.

About noon, her cell phone rang. After jumping out of her skin, Sara answered it breathlessly, "Hello?"

"Hey," Lilly said apprehensively. "We're about thirty minutes ahead of schedule. We'll be there in about a half hour."

"Okay, great. You have directions?"

"Yes. The moving van is right behind us." Lilly's lips curved upwards. "Quit freaking out. The girls actually might be excited." Sara could hear a begrudging, "Only not really" in the background. "It's going to be wonderful," Lilly continued without a hitch "Thank you again for everything."

"No problem. I'll be inside." Sara smoothly hung up the phone and began tapping her fingernails again.

She spent the next half hour obsessively watching the driveway. Her heart jumped a mile when she saw two cars pull up, first a silver SUV followed by a sea green Taurus.

Both cars stalled briefly before stopping. Sara stared out the window until the occupants of the first car—Lilly from the passenger side and a teenager from the driver's side—got out, daughter helping mother, before she ran outside.

The teenager from the first car was very slender with a soft boyish figure; she wore jeans and an Indian blouse with three-quarter sleeves even though it was August and they were in Vegas. The blouse was very loose and a gorgeous aquamarine color, with silver and blue beading. Her hair was a very dark blonde and flipped outward with many layers and brushed-aside bangs. Her skin was light beige, her makeup flawless, her face a cute heart-shape. Large Jackie-O sunglasses were perched on top of her forehead.

Lilly looked much frailer than the last time Sara had seen her; she must have lost at least ten more pounds. She had eschewed the auburn wig in favor of a stylish purple scarf, but that made her cheeks look even more hollow and sunken-in. She wore a linen sweater—Sara suspected being sick made her feel cold much more profoundly—and comfortable slacks, and looked like she was down to her inner steel wire with nothing to disguise it.

The second twin—Sara felt horrible because she didn't which one was which—emerged from the Taurus. Her hair was shorter, about chin length, with side swept bangs. It was a little darker than her sister's, more sun-kissed brown than ash blonde, but there was very little difference. She was larger—bigger, broad shoulders, long powerful arms, curvy chest and hips, and defined legs. She was very muscular, but not bulky or fat—it made her look clean and strong. Her face was longer and more ovular and her skin was tawny. She had deep, bright blue, nearly violet eyes—twin one had more muted blue-green-gray ones—and flawless makeup, too, though less of it. She wore a coral tank top edged with gold sequins and a coral-and-gold drawstring layered prairie skirt, which looked quite cute. Long earrings dangled towards her neck. She walked purposefully towards her mother, and stood on the other side. They climbed the twisting path towards the porch where Sara stood.

"Sara," Lilly stepped forward first to embrace her. "How are you doing?"

"Good. I've been good." Sara swallowed and smiled. "How about you?"

"It's been busy. Very stressful. Some good, some bad, of course," she stepped back. "This is Grace." The first twin, in the aqua shirt, stepped forward to hug Sara.

"Great to meet you." Sara smiled and hugged her. "You must be Jules." She turned to the taller twin.

"Yeah," Jules smiled bravely and hugged her, too.

They stepped back, "Well, do you want to see the house first? I've picked out my bedroom, but you two can have whichever one you want."

"Let's walk-through." Lilly said, and the girls took her sides again, "Girls, I'm fine. Quit worrying so much."

Jules gave Sara a sardonic smile, "She says that a lot. Don't listen to her."

"A'right," Sara said. She led them in, "A lot of the furniture I've purchases has arrived. I haven't begun to contemplate decorating, though; you guys have to help with that."

"Oh! You girls will love that, won't you?" Lilly said archly and firmly.

Sara showed them around, pointing out features and rooms, "This is yours, Lilly." she said, stepping in to the master bedroom.

"Oh, Sara, no. I can't. This is your home; we're guests. I'll stay in a regular bedroom."

"No, seriously. You need to be downstairs and comfortable. This is your room."

For the millionth time since they had started planning this, Lilly looked out of place, awkward, and grateful. "Sara, you've done too much." She murmured.

They walked through the other rooms, "This will look really nice when you finish decorating," Grace observed.

"Thanks," Sara led them up the stairs. "I didn't know which bedrooms you two wanted, or what colors to paint. I also don't know when we're going to get everything done. School starts in two weeks."

"It doesn't matter." Jules said, "Let's just get everything moved in, and then maybe order something in and have you show us around town?"

Sara shrugged. "Yeah. That'll work. We can drive by the school, too. It's right near here." The girls looked at each other and shrugged and nodded.

They set an Adirondack chair up on the front porch with a blanket for Lilly and Jules, Sara, and Grace spent the next two hours helping the moving men. Sara was hot, sweaty, and sore, and completely shocked when Nick Stokes pulled into her driveway at 3:30. Jules, still looking overdressed, stood next to the Soffe-clad Sara on the porch and watched him pull in, "_Who _is _that_?" she said with interest.

"Nick. My friend from work. Only, he's supposed to be working right now."

"He's perfectly welcome," Jules said, and Sara shared a grin with her.

Sara walked slowly down towards him, "Hey," she smiled. "Aren't you supposed to be working?"

He shook his head. "Took the day off. My college roommate is coming to town for a convention; I'm meeting him for dinner. I thought I'd come over and see if you need anything, and meet your cousins. Is that alright?"

"Yeah, completely. Come on up. We've got moving guys moving everything big in—we're sort of unpacking and finding places for things. I don't think we'll be unpacked by Thanksgiving, though." They started walking up the path, "This is my cousin, Lilly. Lilly, Nick Stokes. We work together."

Lilly looked considerably more alert, and had a knowing smirk on her face. "Pleased to meet you. I'm the reason Sara bought a house."

Sara rolled her eyes, "It's fine, Lilly."

"Great to meet you too," Nick smiled.

"And this is Jules, and that's Grace—her daughters. They're seventeen."

"Eighteen in November, though," Grace said brightly.

Sara rolled her eyes and smiled, as did Lilly. Nick just chuckled. "Nice to meet you two." He said, "You should come by the lab someday. It's pretty interesting."

"Dead bodies aren't our thing, but we'll stop by," Jules said.

"What are you guys interested in? You go to college next year, right? Where are you applying?"

They looked at each other before shrugging. "We're looking out East, but everything is sort of in flux, you know……." Grace's voice trailed off. "I'm thinking biomedical engineering and she's thinking American history for majors. We're both looking into Washington University in St. Louis, and I like Northwestern, Duke, and Johns Hopkins, but she likes Yale, UPenn, and Georgetown, too. And we need safeties."

"Do we have to do college visits and things like that?" that had completely slipped Sara's mind.

They both shrugged again, "It would probably be nice."

"We were supposed to start last year, but then I got sick. Everything got pushed to the wayside. I'm not sure how we're going to do it right now. They'll probably have to send in applications blind."

"How does the college visit stuff work?" Sara said confusedly.

"Did you visit Harvard before you went?" Nick said.

She shook her head. "No, and I went a year early, too—I didn't have a senior year."

Nick cocked his head, "Didn't you have a perfect SAT score?"

She nodded, "Yeah. I got it October of my junior year, and decided that I didn't want to finish high school. A Harvard recruiter came to a nearby high school, so I went, and then figured out how to apply and go a year early. If I hadn't have gotten in, I would have just finished my senior year." She turned to the girls, "So, we like go and have a meeting or an interview or something?"

"We'll talk to their guidance counselors Thursday when we have our meeting. There's usually required alumni interviews and things. Didn't Harvard interview you?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "Wasn't necessary." She turned back to the girls, "So how does this college visit stuff work?"

Grace spoke first, slowly. "Well, you go to the school, take a tour, meet with an admissions officer…. you can stay overnight."

"We'll have to work this out later, Sara. They will be perfectly okay applying blind." Lilly assured her.

"I can take some time off. We just have to be really economical. Those are really far geographically."

"We'll decide later," Lilly said, "Nick, would you like something to drink? I think we have a fridge hooked up."

"Nah, that's okay—do you guys need help unpacking?"

"Yes," the girls said, quickly and nearly in unison.

Sara grinned, "You want to help me in the kitchen? We've got all these boxes—nothing put away."

"Great," Nick grinned.

"You two better finish your rooms," Lilly cautioned.

"Do you want to come inside, Lilly? I'll help you unpack as soon as we get the kitchen done."

"That sounds great." Lilly said gratefully. "I'm just going to sit in my chair for a while. There's some stuff, I should get, though, first…." They all walked inside.

"My cousins sure seem to like you," Sara ribbed as soon as they were out of earshot. "Must be the Texan charm."

"Worms its way into everyone's heart," Nick smiled, He lifted a box off of the kitchen table. "When did they get here?"

"About twelve-thirty. I think they drove part of the way last night."

"How's it been going?" Nick knew that Sara was worried the teenagers would hate her.

"Pretty well—but they've just been here two hours, it's been awkward, of course. It's just a hell of a change. Ask me how I am in two weeks." She looked at him more openly than she had looked at anyone in weeks, because it was Nick and she trusted him more than anyone right now. He had never betrayed her, it had never been awkward—everything was straightforward and accepted, even during their bouts of more distant politeness instead of true friendliness. "Nick, I'm just so scared right now—for me, for Lilly, for the girls. It's not what_ if_ I mess it up; it's when and how badly. And what is it supposed to be? A mother figure? A friend, a sister? I don't know. I'm just scared shitless."

Nick enveloped her suddenly. It was the first time Sara felt supported in weeks. "It's going to work out. Just go with it, feel it out for a few days, or weeks. Let it be natural. Everything will always work out for the best." He said, trying desperately to find the correct words of solace.

"Sara?" Jules stood in the archway into the kitchen. "Mom wanted me to give this to you. She found it and framed it and was hoping you'd want it."

"A picture?" Sara twisted out of Nick's embrace.

"Yeah. It's from one of the Christmases when you were a kid." She tilted it towards Sara.

The picture was large and horizontal. It was everyone—Uncle Nathan, Aunt Maggie, Sara, Lilly, Troy, Dan, David, and Leslie. They were posed on a couch in Christmas clothing, Sara remembered the neighbor coming to take the picture. She was about nine or ten. Troy was about sixteen, Lilly nineteen, Dan seventeen, Doug fifteen and Leslie fourteen, though ages didn't matter with Leslie. Sara was sitting in the front, looking slightly sideways and leaning against Lilly, who had her arms wrapped around her cousin protectively. Lilly had the same smile as she did now, bright and laughing and happy. Aunt Maggie and Uncle Nathan sat on the couch, and Leslie in her wheelchair was angled in, next to Aunt Maggie, who had her hand on the wheelchair's armrest. The boys stood behind them—Troy was leaning on the couch in the center, arms crossed and his shoulders hunched over. Doug was on the right, all the weight on his hands, and Dan was the only was standing correctly. The clothing was very funny, as were the hairstyles—all dated and early eighties.

"Oh, my god." Sara said. "This is great."

"Is that _you_?" Nick grinned. "You look so little."

"I was like, nine. Ten at most. I look like a ten-year-old."

"You were a cute kid." Nick said.

"Thanks," she smiled, "We should definitely put this in the living room or something. We have a fireplace. Let's put pictures on the mantle. Like, school pictures and things, you know?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Jules said. "We can sort of decide what other pictures to put on the mantle later. Mom brought a ton."

"I need to go talk to her, actually." Sara said, "Excuse me." She walked quickly past the movers, who were placing a piano—a _piano_? —into the corner of the living room, under Grace's instructions.

"You guys brought a piano?" Sara said.

Looking awkward, Grace replied, "Well, yeah. We didn't want to sell it or anything."

"Alright." Sara said, "You guys play?"

Grace nodded. "Mom made us start when we were about six. We both play for school, too; I play cello and she plays clarinet and alto sax."

"Are you going to play at school here?"

"Yeah. We have to enroll on Thursday and all."

"Yeah. I have that marked down."

"Okay."

"Cool." Sara tried to think of something insightful or interesting to say.

"I was thinking—tonight's probably not great for going out and seeing things. And I don't think Mom will ever get down to see the Strip."

"Grace?"

"Yeah?"

"How's she doing? I'm…. sort of in the dark, I guess. We've only been able to sort of plan all of this out right now."

Grace contemplated, and sighed. "She's dying. She's knows it and we know it. Grace House—has she explained everything there?"

"It's got some cutting-edge treatments that could help."

Grace swallowed and sighed again. "They bill it like that, yeah. But most of the cutting-edge treatments are to reduce pain as you die. It's a high-tech, very personal palliative care clinic specializing in people who are dying and know they're dying but want stronger holistic and spiritual guidance. It's Hospice, essentially. Grace House continues the treatment, but it's not to cure you; it's to keep you and your family comfortable and sane as you die. She'll have chemo and radiation, but only to reduce pain; she'll have pain treatments, too. She's been dying for months—the cancer was too advanced to operate on. She would have just stayed at home and died there, but you're here."

"Me?"

Grace looked like she was about to cry. "She wanted us to be taken care of. I think she wants to make amends for the crappy way it ended between you and my grandparents. She wanted you to take care of us."

"Oh," Sara said. She closed her eyes to think. "Do you, um, want a hug?"

Grace stepped in and hugged her. "Thank you for doing this, you know. I mean, you don't even know us."

"It's fine," Sara said. "Just—please—give me some leeway. I don't know what the hell I'm doing here, either."

"This'll be fun," Grace stepped back wiping her eyes. "I'm going to go upstairs and make sure my room gets set up properly."

"Kay." She watched Grace march slowly upstairs before turning into Lilly's room.

Lilly was sitting in a squashy armchair placed in the center of her room. The moving guys were assembling her bed; they were probably the nicest moving guys Sara had ever met. She was reading a book and resting quietly. Three envelopes were in her lap. "Hi," she said, looking up. "I needed to talk to you."

"Shoot," Sara said, perching lightly on a box.

"I heard you talking—to Grace—so I amended my speech a little bit." She took a breath. "I'm sorry. I tried to keep you in the dark, but I'm not going to be here for Christmas. Maybe not even Halloween." She shook the envelopes in her hands. "These are for the three of you—for afterwards. They'll be in the desk that's going in the corner. There are more papers too—funeral arrangements and contacts and whatnot. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't tell the girls."

"Of course," Sara said, before Lilly continued.

"I've only got a few weeks to make sure the three of you can live together—it's only for a year, but I'd like someone to look after them, you know? After they go away to college and stuff. If they prefer to be independent, okay, let them stretch; if you three can't get along past polite roommates there won't be any retribution from the grave. They're good girls. They're strong and smart and talented. They both like to help people, both want to make differences in the world. They'll go far," her voice took on a hint of forlornness. "Just—keep them safe. They're both type A's. Jules especially has a tendency to veer out of control with her controlling. Grace will bottle things up quietly until the day she dies. Jules is very hell-bent on perfectionism and doesn't forgive—or forget—too easily, and gets very easily disappointed in people when they're not as perfect as she wants them to be. And Grace doesn't have that sort unforgiveness and sharpness, but she wants to succeed as badly as Jules does, only she doesn't have much of a backbone. She's not very assertive or aggressive. She's a lot more understanding, though. She just gets scared a lot more easily. Jules gets down in funks really easily. Jules is a little too inward-focused; Grace doesn't think that she's that deserving of much. Jules is very independent and freethinking, but she wants everyone to think like her, to be as intellectual as her. Grace just wants to belong, to be comfortable and accepted. They're both quite materialistic. And they both don't have too much faith—in anything. I've tried my best but there's still a lot more to be done for them." Her voice was distant. She didn't look like she was talking to Sara. Suddenly jarred back on topic, she continued, "They're honest, straightforward, and bright, but they'll deal with this in very different ways. They're both just so _smart_. Wait till you see them in school. Jules is extremely analytical and imaginative. Her favorite subjects are English and social studies—she writes so well, she does these amazing papers. The way she writes—it's just wonderful, it always has been.And Grace—she thinks in objects, you know? Very mechanical. She's great at three-dimensional arts and crafts. She's just so creative and always has a new way to design things. Grace can make anything, from scratch, even if she's never seen it before." She's excellent at the sciences, too—chemistry and physics and biology. She just visualizes things so well, like cells and atoms—just understands and can see how they work and move and live. They both hate math—it doesn't fit in to either one of their learning styles. They both think it's too static." She realized how far she had veered off-topic. "I have a lot of other things, written down. Please go through them, or let the girls. But, first, I'm really getting ahead of myself—" she laughed a little. "Are you okay, taking this on? I should have asked. I'm sorry. If you just want to make sure they get through high school I'll be grateful, too."

Sara's heart swelled a little. "I'll do whatever it takes, Lilly, as long as it feels right. That's the only thing I can do, right?" her thoughts temporarily fleeted to Nick.

Lilly's eyes swelled up. "Thank you. They probably don't need a mother anymore, most of the time, but they'll need somebody to be there. Thank you." She was silent for a while before continuing. "Just try to get to know them. They might push a little, but they're so lost right now, they'll work through it. When we go to the school, do you mind having a meeting with just you, me, and the administrators? It will need done. And there are things like their physicians—things like that. It will all be in my papers. I'm sorry. There's going to be a lawyer, and the will is very sound. I fixed it yesterday."

"Why didn't you tell me, sooner? About how sick you are? I've been babbling on about paint chips on the phone lately."

Lilly knotted her hands. "I was being selfish, again. I…need someone to look after the girls. I don't want Dan or Doug—I love them to death, but Doug is still as irresponsible as a teenager. You should meet his children. They're hellions, completely out of control. It wouldn't be supportive. Dan—he has a very narrow focus on everything. It's all about him, Katrina, and their kids. Whether it's Jules and Grace or a homeless person on the street, he doesn't care. Thom didn't have any family; besides, we hadn't been close to them in years."

"Why me, then? Lilly, we haven't talked in years. You didn't even know that I had _met_ the girls."

Lilly shrugged, licked her lips, and looked down. "You're right. We hadn't talked in years. But, like you said, you've sort of kept in touch with Dad. He would talk about you, about your degrees and your jobs and things. And I was impressed. Sara—you were in foster care, and you got yourself through Harvard. Your mother killed you father, and you have a Master's degree. You've come from some of the worst conditions, period, and have a successful job. Now, since we haven't talked in forever, I don't know if you're successful personally. Speaking from experience, you've probably got a lot of demons. But you're strong. You just seemed so strong. And, when you were little, you were so smart and curious and concerned with doing the right thing. I had hoped those had stayed. If I had a bad feeling about you, I would have just stayed in Sacramento."

"Well, I can tell you right now, I'm not very great. My interpersonal skills aren't the best." Sara said wryly.

Lilly only smiled, "Then why is that Nick out there?"

Now it was Sara's turn to play with her fingers. "Nick's a good friend, and a good man. Nick always likes to fix things and make everything better. He sees four damsels in distress and can't help but get on his horse."

"Yeah. Okay," Lilly managed to keep a mostly straight face. She shifted a little, sat up straighter. "I know that we should put the bed together and things, but can we take a rain check? I'm a little tired."

"Yeah. Of course." Sara straightened, tugging at the sides of her shorts. She hated shorts. "How do you want to decorate?"

"I don't." Lilly said. "I'm not going to be here long enough to see the paint dry. I'd like you to have this room some day. Also, when it gets close to my time—" she looked up hesitantly, and Sara nodded to show she was comfortable discussing this. "I'd rather go at the hospital or at Grace House. I don't want you three thinking that my spirit is crowding you or anything. I don't believe in ghosts, but that would be too traumatic for me to live with."

Sara nodded, trying to think of something appropriate to say. "Okay. I'll make sure of that."

"Thank you," Lilly said. Her cheeks looked much paler than earlier; Sara realized that all her strength was slowly seeping outward.


	7. 7

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Thank you all for reading! Please review!

After crying silently in the downstairs bathroom for five minutes, Sara wiped the train tracks of tears from her face, wriggled her arms loose, and slowly let the door open. She gravitated towards the bright, soothing voices coming from the kitchen—the girls and Nick.

They were giggling and laughing, things she hadn't expected from the world-weary teenagers. Most of the dishes and things had been put away, too. "Hey, Sara," Grace smiled, twisting in her chair. "We invited Nick over for dinner."

"Really?" Sara replied, looking at Nick, who just raised his eyebrows and smiled bashfully. "When? I hope you two can cook."

"We make a mean risotto." Jules said, "Also, chicken tacos, and chicken Parmesan. That's about it, though. Whaddaya want, Nick?"

"Whatever," he said. Seeing Sara's confused look, he continued, "Greg and Warrick already got roped into this too."

"There's a night that all four of us aren't working?" she said skeptically. "That didn't happen even when we were on the same shift."

"Friday night."

"Friday? This Friday?"

"Yeah. You're still off, and Greg doesn't work until eleven. It's Warrick's night off, and I switched Sofia for that night."

"Why?"

He smirked, "She wanted to. She called me yesterday. It just really fit in with the dinner plans perfectly, then."

"She just wanted to switch? Why?"

"Yeah."

"She didn't give a reason?"

"She was glad to. She thinks Nights it the Creepy, Weirdo Crime Shift." Sara couldn't argue with that—Sofia had said that before. "Plus, it's nice to work with Grissom and Greg once in a while."

Sara laughed too. "Glad I'm not working. You and Greg on the same shift would be like being on Frat Row."

"Thanks," Nick sounded mock-wounded.

"Do you guys think we can get the house into shape by then?" Sara smiled at her cousins.

"Psht. Of course," Grace said. "You just stuff everything upstairs."

"Speaking of food—dinner, anyone? It's almost five."

"Let's just order food—what do you guys want? I don't have any takeout menus from around here, but I know pretty much every takeout category in Vegas."

"Italian?" Grace said as Jules said, "Thai?"

"You two decide." Sara said. "I'm not going to get in the middle of this. There's everything, even weird things like Greek."

"I've never had Greek," Jules said, "Let's order it.

Grace wrinkled her nose. "It's probably stuff like feta cheese and fish on lettuce."

"Let's try it."

"Let's not. We've got to consider what Mom can eat."

Jules looked taken aback. "Shoot. Subway?"

"Probably," Grace nodded. She turned to Sara. "Subway nearby?"

"Yeah, there's a strip mall with it about a mile or so from here."

"Is Mom sleeping?" Grace asked.

Nodding, Sara replied, "Yeah. I left her alone; she said she needed to get some rest."

Grace nodded, "She sleeps a lot nowadays."

"Yeah. Should we bring her back something?"

"Probably. And if you have anyplace that sells canned soup, we need to swing by there and get that. I can't find any of our canned food boxes. Mom loves canned soup."

"Well, hey, you guys are getting ready for dinner, and I need to get ready to meet with Kevin." Nick said.

"The Kevster's back in town?" Sara smiled wickedly. She hadn't made the connection—three years prior, Nick's college buddy had been in town, gotten drunk while out for drinks with Nick, Sara, and Warrick, and had regaled Sara with obnoxious, masochistic stories about his college days.

Nick smiled ruefully. "Yeah. I'll tell him you say hi."

"You do that," Sara said.

Getting up, Nick squeezed Sara's shoulder, and said, "Have a good few days. I'll see you guys on Friday night."

"See ya," the teenagers smiled. Nick knew they thought he was cute. He left them deciding which subs to buy, deciding to give them the pizza-and-beer-only-when-it's-Moving-Day lecture later.


	8. 8

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Thank you all for reading! Please review!

Nick was worried about Sara; he honestly was. Sara was not the type you worried about; at least, she wasn't the type you admitted you worried about. He knew only the sketchiest of details about Sara's childhood, but he knew that she had survived something horrific. He knew that she had been in therapy for a while now, and he knew that most of her teenaged years were spent using books and science to escape from foster care. However, the more he had learned about Sara, the less he had worried. Sara was tough. She had learned how to survive and function normally without needing to lean on anyone else. She could get through anything. It reassured him and assuaged his worries whenever he started to fret over her, the fact that he knew that she would survive. Worry was only a warning to look out for a little more closely, keep an eye on her back. Just in case.

He had begun this passive watching years ago, after a few too many cases with her struggling to pretend to be a dispassionate observer about victims. She was such an enigma; she was fully cocooned within a no-nonsense, straightforwardly quirky and geeky exterior but was really very compassionate and empathetic. She saw victims and injustices where others saw crimes needing justice. Nick had dated a psychology major all through college, had picked a few things up that, when coupled with his observation chops, he was able to notice things. Her obsessiveness, her awkwardness, her energy and quickness, her love of the science, her fear of attachments, her smile, her survivor's guilt, her tumbling-snowball mentality, her self-mutilating habits of making things unnecessarily complicated and hard on herself. He began to study her, and he began to be fascinated by her and her complexities, which seemed much more real and tragic than everyone else's due to their nature and her nature. Everyone else had something to fall back on, something to look forward to, something that tempered him or her when things got tough. Sara didn't really have any of those, and she seemed scared of having normal coping mechanisms. She coped in her own way and she went on, but she preferred to do it in the most difficult manner possible. She was brilliant, literally a physics genius. She was beautiful, with a wonderful sense of humor and happy smile when she wanted it. But she was an extreme type-A, the sort of person who might have died if they had gotten a B, been second-string in a sport, wasn't the teacher's natural favorite, or hadn't come in first in everything she attempted. She was naturally introverted, too, and was able to use her independence and academics as a way to separate herself, keep people from questioning her, and continue to lead her tough, tumbleweed existence.

Now, though, he felt he needed to be more active. Sara's very nature was to not trust anyone and not get attached to anything, in order to maintain her reserved, fight-or-flight mentality. She had to keep moving, keep acting and thinking like she was analyzing a chess game. For her first several years, there was no future; planning ahead was staying afloat. She had once told him she had stayed too long in Vegas; paradoxically, she felt she was too involved now to leave. She was wary of any sort of relationship with codependency; it was giving up too much of herself, risking too much, only to potentially be damaged again. Boyfriends, roommates, and family—in order to feel safe, Sara couldn't have any of these. He knew that she was changing, maturing, slowly, but now—he was damn uncertain. The three unknown variables of Lilly, Jules, and Grace would completely throw off Sara's methodical, scientific way of surviving. The flip side of surviving—she hadn't yet hit 'overcoming'—her childhood was being unable to be leaned upon too heavily. She could deal with being responsible at work, getting through the case and getting her job done and being responsible, but he wasn't sure that, at least right now, she could emotionally handle the burdens and benefits of family. Sara hated to be considered fragile, but she was, and she could crack.

Though his job and day-to-day life dealt with the factual, dead side of death, he had been exposed to both the emotional aspect and the dying period of death many times before, and not only in the violent, explosive ways Sara had been. He had seen one grandmother die of Parkinson's, one grandfather from a heart attack an hour before Thanksgiving dinner, and his other grandmother die from lung cancer. He'd seen one cousin drown the year he was seven at their lake house, had had another two that committed suicide, one while high, a friend in high school die in a car accident, and had watch an aunt die slowly of cervical cancer the year he was fourteen. He recognized death and had known immediately that Lilly, who had bright eyes and tried so hard to be charming and welcoming, was dying. Grace and Jules were very smart and engaging; they had been raised right. They knew that she wasn't going to last very long. He wasn't sure Sara knew; he was fairly certain she didn't know the whole purpose of the 'treatment' was so that she hoped she had found someone to watch over her daughters. He thought that if Sara adapted, if she grew outward and expanded and didn't flinch, she would be wonderful, that Lilly had great wisdom and forethought to choose Sara. Hopefully, the experiences in the next few months would teach Sara these things, and hopefully, the effects of having their mother die wouldn't send Jules and Grace totally off the stress deep end. If all three coped correctly, it might work out. Otherwise, he was just worried that Sara would collapse and the other two would self-destruct or implode.

He parked his car in Caesar's parking garage, taking his ticket from the attendant. They were planning on eating a light, early dinner and then Doing Vegas—maybe gambling a little, seeing a show or something. They would meander through the night.

Kevin had called him earlier that day with room details, so Nick bypassed the front desk and immediately headed up to Kevin's room. The two had had roomed together at college, and Kevin had gotten an MBA from SMU as Nick started at the Dallas PD. Kevin had gotten married, Nick had broken the engagement to Kevin's fiancée's sister and moved to Vegas. Going back to stand with Kevin had been one of the most uncomfortable occasions of his life, what with his ex shifting from right foot to left foot and avoiding him from five feet away in a celery green dress and his mother's disapproving glare and folded arms nine rows back on the right. After a few years of being too busy to see each other, the two tried to get together every time Nick returned to Dallas or Kevin found a conference in Vegas.

He rapped on the door and yelled, "Yo, bro."

"Yeah, Stokes, coming," Kevin called from the other side before swinging the door open. Kevin was a little heavier than last time they'd seen each other, his blond hair thinning and graying towards the crown. He still looked like a good ol' boy quarterback. He had two children and his wife was pregnant again. They did the manly half-hug, half-backslap and Kevin said happily, "You look good, Stokes. How's the job treating you?"

"It's pretty good. We had some internal shakeups a couple of months ago, but it's working out." He decided to gloss over the buried-alive thing.

"Still working your crazy-ass raccoon hours?"

"Nah, I'm afternoon and evening now. I get off at eleven, as opposed to starting then."

"Damn, you're still crazy. And all that overtime they make you pull…."

"If I didn't like it, I'd switch shifts, or quit," Nick pointed out. Kevin was from an affluent, content, suburban Dallas family and had happily fit in to that wholesomely Texan mold when he grew up. He worked normal hours, had a wife that did not work, and liked to put on cowboy boots underneath his suit. He liked the things his job provided but probably didn't care for his work. He had rarely struggled with anything, or thought about things to the point where he needed to struggle with them. They'd had a lot in common in college, but had slowly drifted down divergent paths since then, and kept in touch for old times' sake. "How's your job doing?"

He shrugged. "Pretty good. Not really _exciting_, but it can be interesting, if you make it, you know?"

"What's this conference about?"

He rolled his eyes. "Banking Issues Affecting Families—mortgages, college funds, retirement accounts. Pretty damn boring. I've gotta get out onta the town, it's just so damn boring."

"Where do you wanna eat?" Nick said as they waited for the elevator.

"I don't care. It's up to you. How's the traffic?"

"Oh, it's fine. I was just running late. I was helping a friend move into her new place."

"Ah, okay. I was just worried that traffic might be a bitch or something."

Nick chose the BOA Steakhouse, mostly because it was located in Caesar's. It was very good, though. They started to laugh about Old Times, and Kevin shared gossip about people that Nick remembered. He learned about Peggy and Michael's split, Diane's Botox, Charlie had quit smoking for real this time, and on and on. Nick was half-listening, mostly nodding along. Shortly after they had placed their orders, Kevin casually said, "Oh, and Megan's having a baby. She's due in February." Megan was Nick's ex-fiancée, Kelly's sister.

Nick looked up, "Yeah? You'd said she'd gotten married."

"Yeah, last June, to Ted Oleson. He's a little older, divorced. Has three girls with Miriam—God, what's her last name? —it sounds like…Merchant, that's it. Miriam Merchant. She's remarried, too, to Danny Gullet. Anyways, Ted and Miriam's second daughter—they have three—is Kent's age, they're going to kindergarten together."

"Whoa, Kent's in kindergarten? Wow." Nick said, eager to get off of the bedhopping of his ex-fiancée's current husband.

"Yeah, starts next week. Kelly's so nervous. I think if she didn't have Katie still at home and another one coming, she'd be heartbroken. But, we found out three weeks ago—the next one's a girl, too."

"Oh, really? That's awesome. Are you keeping with the 'K' names?" Nick smiled.

"Yeah—Kassie, we think. Or Kayla. Still have another few months, though."

As the night progressed, a familiar pattern was followed: Kevin would discuss his life for the first part of the evening, and then, as he got more drunk, would start asking Nick probing, blunt questions about his life. "Are you seeing anyone?" he said as they were waiting for the dessert.

"Me? No." Nick took a sip of his beer. "I don't leave the lab half the time."

"Yeah, Miranda's mentioned that a few times." Miranda was the third-youngest Stokes, three years older than Nick. Her husband banked with Kevin. Nick rolled his eyes. Miranda was, like most busybodies, well intentioned and ill informed. "I mean, Nick, you really can't tell me you're happy being such a free spirit. You've gotta settle down, you know? I mean, look at it in the broad context." He stumbled over context. "I mean, we're nothing. Shitheads. We're here for a while, we die, and do many people really care? No, nobody outside your family. Is the greater good of humanity altered? Nope, unless you're one of a very select number. And what is the easier of these two to achieve—family, or being famous? You gotta have a family. They're your legacy; they're the only ones that care when you die and they're the only hope you got of actually impacting something big. Kids, wife—everything's just a lot happier with them."

"I don't know. I'm not against marriage, but I'm not rushing into some decision just so I might have kids. I'd be fine without kids. I am fine with out kids."

"Really? You've never thought of having someone with your eyes when you're asleep or playing football with a boy that throws exactly like you?" Kevin was way drunk. Nick suspected they wouldn't be gambling that night. "You always think, _Oh, I can live without kids_. Then you have them and it's amazing and scary and everything they say it is and you can't imagine your life without them. I mean, hell, Nick, we're 34."

"35." Nick corrected. "My birthday was two weeks ago."

"See? We're grown-ups. In a few years, it's gonna be twenty years since we got outta high school. Damn, how scary is that? What are you going to say at the reunion? Nick, I know you don't think you need kids right now, but honestly, dude, life without them now—"

"Kevin," Nick said slowly and deliberately, as if dumbing down the Superstring Theory for a nine-year-old. "First, I'd like to get married. And I'm not getting married unless she's the right woman. And I haven't found her yet. It's really just that."

Kevin's expression perked at that. "What about the chick?"

"The chick?" Nick wracked his brain for a chick.

"Yeah. You helped her move today, remember?"

"Sara."

"Yeah—hey isn't she the one that we went out to drinks with? Brunette?"

"Yeah, that's Sara." He was surprised Kevin remembered that.

"She's pretty hot."

"We work together. We're friends."

"Friends?"

"Exactly."

"Just friends." Nick was getting irritated; Kevin always seemed to get so wasted when they were together and then started belligerent, irritating conversation.

"No," Nick said, "not just friends. We are friends. There's no 'just' about it. That 'just' belittles our friendship. We're friends. We laugh, we hang out, we talk. There's nothing romantic going on there. Period."

"Kay," Kevin said.

Nick rolled his eyes, "Come on. Let's get to the casino or something." He helped Kevin to his feet. And they thought Sara had a liquor issue.


	9. 9

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Thank you all for reading! Please review!

* * *

Teenagers made Sara's head spin. Everything had been ramped up and was occurring in the fastest pace possible. There was so much to do, so much to plan, so much to merely _think _about—especially in the first few days. They all just wanted to get everything settled, so that life could continue until the next major upheaval—the one nobody would mention—twisted their lives. Bedrooms needed to be decorated first. Jules had decided to sponge-paint hers a pale turquoise and arranged pictures of her friends and stuff on the wall in the shape of a large fish. Grace wanted to paint hers a serene mauve and set up a meditation corner where she could read and think. They began to immediately rotate through the rooms—painting one, going on to the next room, and going to the next, until the house reeked of paint. But they all got painted in three days, with Jules, Grace, and Sara working nearly round-the-clock. Lilly insisted they just leave her walls white for the time being. They then set up the bedrooms— both the girls had desks with computers and iPods and iTunes in their room, and music was constantly in the background. They had a huge range of tastes—everything from The Shins and Ben Folds to John Mayer and Five For Fighting to hard rock and a little hip-hop and R&B to The Stones, The Beatles, and Dylan. Jules was apparently going through a U2 phase.

Downstairs, they planned how they would decorate the living room, family room/den thing, and dining room, and they decided to leave the other rooms, like the screened-in porch and the rec room, for later. There was a television in the living room and another one in the kitchen, and VH1 or Bravo was usually on at least one TV. They called back and forth to each other—talking, laughing, joking, arguing, crying. Both girls spent a great deal of time on the phone back to Sacramento. Grace had a boyfriend back there she had broken up with because of the move but wasn't quite past him, and they talked a lot. Jules always had a friend to call and would spend several hours rocking back and forth on her bed and drooping around the house as she talked to people. Sara's life hadn't been this noisy since college.

There was so much to remember. They all went to St. Christopher's on Thursday and the girls registered for classes. Grace, who liked sciences more than anything else, took AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Calc, and AP Lit in addition to orchestra, Materials Art, and nutrition. She was especially excited about Materials Art—they would create things like jewelry and furniture. Jules liked social sciences and literature classes and signed up for AP Calc, AP Lit, AP Stats, AP Comparative Politics, AP Psych, and AP Macro plus band and a vague class called Modern Novels. The girls, who had attended a large public high school, were thrilled by the prospect of uniforms—until they saw the knee-length green plaid skirts. Still, they convinced their mother to purchase all the 'optional' parts of the uniform—wraparound skirt, polo shirt, embroidered oxford shirt, tie, hair band, and a vest. (The sweater, bow tie, pleated skirt, blazer, vest, and khakis were mandatory.) Lilly and Sara had a meeting with the administrators and Lilly calmly laid down the situation. They talked to college counselors about taking the SATs again, when the girls would find out Merit standing—Jules had scored four points higher on the PSAT and they both wanted Finalist—and found a tennis coach for Grace and a swim team for Jules. Both girls started practicing immediately, and Sara was never quite sure when they needed to be at practice. Grace was also put in touch with the advisers for the Science Club and the Art Club, and Jules was put on the yearbook staff as a writer and proofreader immediately. They met with the NHS and Quill & Scroll advisers and got meeting schedules. Lilly needed to find them dentists and optometrists and gynecologists, so they took a trip to Sara's clinic on Friday. A contractor had been hired for the kitchen and Sara's eyes looked like saucers every time she signed a bill. Lilly had treatments or counseling sessions pretty much every day, and somebody needed to drive her to Grace House and pick her up. There were sessions for family members, too, and Lilly signed up Sara, Grace, and Jules. Lilly made a calendar of events for the next few weeks and gave Sara her old BlackBerry to organize different appointments.

It was extremely stressful. Whenever she woke up, she went on a run. She knew that if she ran hard enough, she could force her mind into oblivion and operate on reflexes and pain. When she wasn't running, she forced herself to operate on autopilot, coaching herself to just get through the next day until things were a little easier. She constantly worried with a passion that wouldn't subside about the days when Lilly would gone—what would the girls be like? What would she be like? It was all so new to her—she was nervous and scared about every move that she made. She felt like she was running on eggshells filled with sharp glass over fire.

On the designated Friday night, Warrick and Nick and Greg came over. The girls decided to make it a dinner party and had Sara call them ahead of time to request that they wear suits. They pondered for hours over the menu. To Sara's delight, both girls called themselves 'semi-veggie,' meaning they only ate poultry and fish. This was great, but hard to reconcile with the boys' tastes. Finally, they decided on Caesar salad, an herbed chicken, several side vegetables, and triple chocolate cake. Jules wore a tight black dress that made her curvier than Jennifer Lopez with a plunging neckline and a sexy ruffle running down the center with the fabric ruching towards it. Grace wore a black-and-white 1950s starlet dress with a strapless bodice top that flared into a tea-length skirt that she'd recently purchased from Banana Republic. They giggled and cajoled Sara into throwing on an asymmetrical navy blue silk dress she had purchased for the last Christmas party she felt obligated to attend. Even Lilly dressed up, in linen pants and a wraparound sweater. She sat through the whole dinner with a beaded blanket thrown over her lap.

The dinner went wonderfully. The boys dressed up in suits without ties and she felt a surge of maternal pride when they walked in. Warrick got them a smoothie maker, Greg brought an assortment of coffee beans, and Nick gave the girls CDs that they had mentioned to him, and gave Sara flowers and a forensics book. They laughed a lot—the girls were charming and sweet and talkative, but not overly flirty or remotely skanky. Sara snorted into her water several times when the guys told jokes, and tried not to notice how small Lilly's—she was next to her—wrists looked. Sara could have almost sworn she could see the individual carpals shifting past each other every time Lilly's hands moved. Greg hit it off immediately with the outgoing, offbeat Jules, while Warrick liked the artistic, sweet-tempered Grace. Nick just spent the entire time grinning dopily at both—Sara knew he thought they were amazing. The girls were urged to come and visit the lab, and the guys promised to take them out to breakfast, to see Vegas, and to come over whenever they were welcome. As they were leaving, Greg kissed Sara's cheek and whispered, "They're completely awesome, Sar. I love 'em."

Sara was due to go back to work on Sunday, so Lilly called a family meeting at about eight o'clock Saturday night to organize a schedule of work, sports practices, and music rehearsals for the week. There was a high-profile swim competition in town that Jules really wanted to go to that was occurring throughout the week. Sara used the BlackBerry to schedule in the girls' stuff and when Lilly was going to need to be at Grace House. "Who do you want to give you rides there?" Sara asked.

"Meredith will pick me up and drop me off and everything," Meredith was Lilly's personal counselor. It was sort of macabre—a personal counselor for dying. But Meredith was very nice, with strong, chubby hands. She had found the family a minister on short notice and had promised to help with the grocery shopping. Lilly liked her immediately. Lilly smiled, "Now, what about you, Sara? When do you work? When do you sleep and things?"

Sara raised her eyebrows. "Well. It depends. Like, my shift's supposed to be from eleven to seven, but there's overtime a lot when a case is hot. I have to pull doubles. And sometimes, even triples. When I'm upset, or engrossed I guess, in a case, I just nap at the lab. It just depends. Sleep does, too, I guess." At the girls' raised eyebrows, she said quickly, "Don't worry. I'll try and get home as soon as I can."

"Oh, no, I want you to keep your normal routine." Lilly said. "Anything else that you do weekly? Remember, Sara, just be normal."

"Well—I take yoga classes—at seven on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But I'll just do it from home when I have time."

"No, it'll be fine. Don't worry." Lilly said assuredly.

Sara rubbed her eyes. She was dog tired, her internal clock off from trying to get things done during the day and still maintain her nocturnal schedule. "Dammit Lilly." Her voice was lower and sharper than she intended. "Please stop acting as if you're being an imposition. I know we've only skirted on this, but I'm here for the long run. You're not an imposition. If anything, I'm returning the favor. So, please, quit thanking me and asking me to stick to my former schedule. There is nothing abnormal happening here. It's just changed, Lilly, and it's just about adjusting to the changes. Finding a new yoga class and coming home to sleep once in a while are the minor changes around here. Don't get bent out of shape since I'm trying to be a contributing member here. Now, please—when do you need me here? What hours do you want me sleeping, at home, when do I need to be around? You asked me to be more than a guardian and I'm trying to do that but I need a little guidance. I'll take orders. Hell, right now I _need_ orders."

There was an unnerving silence, and Sara immediately regretted her outburst. "Listen—Lilly, I'm sorry. I shouldn't've said those things…"

"No—you were right." The voice wasn't Lilly; it was Jules. Her face was scared but resolute, and compassion and sadness beamed through. "Mom, we need to talk. All four of us, I mean. I mean, Sara's so lost…she's got her own stuff, and we're here and all of our stuff's already established and all, you know? Like, we might be on Sara's turf but she's the one that's living with three of us. We…we kinda need some…I guess I'm thinking boundaries. Not necessarily rules. Just boundaries. Expectations, even. I mean, I know you were just going to feel through it to not step on toes…but Mom…" her stoic face crumpled like a paper napkin. "You're dying. You're flipping dying. What are we supposed to do? What do you want us to do?"

Understanding and sympathy spread across Lilly's face as if they'd been slapped on. "Oh, Julie." She said, tears flickering in the corners of her eyes before wobbling down, "Come here, sweets." Lilly, so remarkably tiny and frail, spread her arms as far as she could to envelope the sobbing, strong, lanky teenager. "You too, kitten." She said to Grace. "C'mere, Gracie," Grace fell into her arms too, her body beginning to writhe with silent sobs. Sara, sitting awkwardly next to the mother-daughter bonding tear fest straight out of _Steel Magnolias_, wiped her eyes inconspicuously. "Okay, girls, chins up," Lilly said, leaning backwards and wiping her eyes. "We've got to." She clumsily pushed Grace off of her lap so that the girl stumbled slightly, and Sara lunged forward to catch her under the armpits. "Sorry, kitten." Lilly looked momentarily freaked.

"It's okay," Grace got up, dusting off of the plaid-print boxer hot pants she used as pajamas. Sara noted that both the girls looked very disheveled; it was really the first time she'd seen them outside of their chic, coolly professional wardrobe entirely from Express, Gap, Banana Republic, and all the other better-line clothing shops for twentysomethings they seemed to love. "Jules is right. We should talk things out."

"I mean, Lilly, when do you need me here? Honestly." Sara said.

"Well," Lilly said, "I don't want you to give up anything at work—if you need to work overtime to solve a case, do so. Just—call ahead, will you? Both girls can drive, have cars and all, but call."

"Of course," Sara said. "I'll try to come home more often—instead of sleeping at the lab, I mean. I can get home. I'll keep my yoga classes and things, but I'll transfer my Y membership—there's one about a mile or so from here, I think. It shouldn't be too hard. I can also switch to the Saturday afternoon yoga class, instead of a Tuesday evening one."

"Okay." Lilly said. "If it doesn't work out too well, I guess we can revisit it. Now, Sara, what are your rules?"

"My rules?" Sara was confused, "Like, house rules?"

"Yeah. This is your house. The girls should abide by your rules. I've noticed that they've sort of been doing their old chores—Jules loads the dishes, Grace sets the table—but you can make us do whatever you want." Lilly said.

"Oh. Well," Sara said, "I guess just do whatever chores you normally do. We'll make Friday laundry day—that's the day I've always done my laundry. I do sheets and towels on Thursday and I clean on Saturday."

"The girls will help with those." Lilly said firmly. "What do you want for curfew rules?"

"I don't know. What were yours?"

"Nine o'clock on school nights, ten if they're working. On weekends, one at the latest, but I must know plans."

"Let's keep those, I guess. Everyone has to be at home before I leave for work. I—there's an alarm system I had installed on Monday. I can set that before I leave. And no house parties or crazy crap like that."

"Sara," Jules rolled here eyes, "We just moved here. We don't know anyone to have over for a house party."

"Well, just in case." She looked nervously at Lilly, "Is that enough? Do I need to make more rules?"

"No," Lilly said, "You're fine. And, girls, remember—you still clean your own rooms." They rolled their eyes.

"You know what?" Jules said suddenly. "We should get a dog."

Lilly laughed. "Maybe later, honey. Let's wait until school starts."

"Fine," Jules mock-pouted, causing, for some inexplicable reason, everyone else to dissolve into giggles. Grace stuck her tongue out at her sister, and the two started giggling again. Sara's lips curved upward, tentatively, sadly. Everyone might—just might—turn out okay.

* * *

A/N: Anushka: The whole deal with Lilly's and Sara's families will come out in a few chapters! 


	10. 10

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Thank you all for reading! Please review! I'm almost done—two or three more chapters to write, and about five to post. Please stick with me!

* * *

Sara yawned as she schlumped into the house at 10 AM. She had called ahead, said she was staying to wait for test results from a hot case. Early into her first shift back from her break, they had received a call from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Sports Complex. There was a dead body in the pool, an apparent drowning. Brass had wryly told Grissom to, "Bring anyone you can find. This is hotter than porn."

Grissom had gathered Nick, Sofia, Sara, and Greg—Nick had been hanging around the lab talking with Sara and Greg when the call came in. It was only after they arrived at the pool that they learned the dead person was Skylar Westborough, a seventeen-year-old swimming star who was in town for the Sin City Swim Classic. Sara had spent over an hour combing a bare locker room with Sofia, finding only the girl's belongings; then Brass, after having deemed Sara the lab's new expert on teenaged girls, insisted that _she_ be the one to the tell the dead girl's sister and best friend, also swimmers in town for the week. Grissom had handled the autopsy but Sara had clocked out, desperate for sleep and waffles, before hearing the results.

Sara was contemplating adding chocolate chips to the batter—the case had been that sad and the shift that hard—when Jules walked in to the kitchen. "Hey," Sara said, "Is Grace still asleep?" She knew that Lilly was at Grace House already; this was the first she'd seen the girls.

"She's waking up. Slowly." Jules said. After a slight hesitation, she said, "Is it true?"

"What?" Sara said, chewing a handful of chocolate chips.

"Skylar Westborough died last night. I heard it on the news."

"It got out already?" Sara was astonished.

"So it's true?" Jules sounded scandalized—interested and scandalized. "Are you on the case? What happened? Who are the suspects?"

"I can't tell you that. Want a waffle?"

"No, thanks, I'm more yogurt-and-cereal. Why can't you tell me? Come on." Jules begged.

"Jules, no, I can't, it's an active case. I'm not allowed to say anything."

"Are you investigating it?" She was thrilled.

"Yeah. It's me, Nick, Greg, Sofia, and Grissom."

"I haven't met Sofia and Grissom. I think I should come in to the lab tonight. You know, to meet them. And Brass and that David and Hodges and Archie and Jackie that Greg was talking about."

"Fine. But Grissom, Sofia, Hodges, David, Archie, and Jackie won't tell you anything either. There are legal ramifications."

"Her sisters swim. Did you get to meet them?"

"I only met one of them."

"Which one?"

"Caden. Cameron is apparently sick."

"Caden's better, anyways. That must suck. It's already tough being a twin, since you're always compared to each other, but to be the 'other' twin when you're still at the national level? Damn, that would suck. They have two younger sisters that are twins, too; half-sisters, really. Their names are Evan and Eden."

"Their mother had a crazy naming scheme going on."

"Does it matter? Those four-year-olds are probably better swimmers than ninety percent of the adult population. Are there any other swimmers in town for the meet?"

"Yeah. I also had to talk to a girl named Helen—Nellie, really—Van Heelen, they were rooming together. There were a couple of other girls, Sofia handled that one."

"So you got the girls closest to Skylar? She and Nellie Van Heelen have been training together for six or so years—Nellie lives with the Westboroughs because her parents moved back to Seattle. I saw it on ESPN. They did a whole program on Skylar. She went to the Olympic trials at age eleven, in the 100M Free. She's psychotically amazing."

"What else do you know about her?"

"Um….Her coach, Max Armstrong, has this amazing thing going in San Francisco. My coach in Sacramento knew him, and she brought him up one for a clinic. He's amazing. He coaches the Westborough girls, Nellie Van Heelen, and two other girls, and that's it. He just works with them. He whole program is amazing—he monitors everything; they work out like four hours a day. She's only done half-days at school since seventh grade—she'll take math, English, a science class, a history class, and leave. No electives. Then they've said she's dating this one guy who's a swimmer, Nate Danskeep. He's based in Texas, so I don't know how they _date_, or whatever, since she's in San Francisco. He's about twenty, and, my God, he is _hot_. Sara!" her eyes got wide. "Tell me you get to interview him. He's flipping amazing looking! Please tell me that! Get a picture or something! Have you met him yet?"

There was an expectant silence. The case could very well hinge on Nate Danskeep—both Nellie Van Heelen and Caden Westborough said the last time they'd seen Skylar was when she was planning to go out with Nate for the evening. "No. Not yet. We have to find him, first."

"He's_ missing_?" Jules practically shouted with glee. "Damn, this is cool! Do you think there will be a police chase or anything?"

Sara raised an eyebrow. "No," she said succinctly. "It's not as melodramatic as you'd like it to be." She pressed the batter into the waffle oven.

Grace stumbled down into the kitchen. "That smells good," she said, crossing to

the bread drawer and getting a bran muffin.

"Want one?" Sara volunteered, pulling the top of the press off with a warm _hss_.

"No, thanks." She said. "This is plenty."

"Want to go to the lab tonight?" Jules said eagerly.

"Yeah, sure. We should just get home before Mom goes to bed and all."

"Awesome. I can't wait."

"Why?" Grace said quizzically. "On Friday night when Warrick, Greg, and Nick invited you to the lab you said that you'd rather meet them over pizza."

"I've changed my mind," Jules said airily. Then she caved, "I'm just really interested in this case. Skylar Westborough died."

"The swimmer?" Grace said interestedly, grabbing a banana.

"Yeah. She died. And Sara's got the case."

"Really?" Grace smiled. "That's awesome."

"Not really." Sara said. She buttered her waffle, and then rolled it so that she could eat it more quickly. "Usually, we stay at the lab. I need to sleep a little. I just came home to make sure everything was fine; I'm going back as soon as I take a nap."

"Can we come with?" Grace said suddenly, in a rush of words. There was a difference between _joking_ about going to the lab and actually going, and it made Grace a little nervous.

Sara turned slightly and smiled tentatively. She, too, knew that it was some sort of invisible line being crossed, an outstretched hand, a potential bond. It implied comfort and security in a relationship that nobody in the triumvirate really felt quite yet. "Yeah. Sure. I'm going to go sleep now."


	11. 11

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

This chapter is from Lilly's point of view. I'm trying to segue into what's going to happen after Lilly's death(which will happen) and go deeper into what she and the girls are feeling.

Please keep reading and reviewing; I appreciate it _so_ much. I was at camp last week, and I'm trying to wrap up everything and planning for the sequel. Stick with me!

* * *

"And how do you feel about that?" Margaret's eyes had an expectant, intelligent look that made Lilly squirm.

"Personally," Lilly tried to joke, "I've always hated that question. Abhorred, even. I can't stand that question."

Margaret quirked an eyebrow. She was such an enigma, much harder to figure out than Meredith, the sturdy, organized social worker who had promised to stay to help with the girls after Lilly's death; or Sarah, the eager, listening, young nurse that was always up for talking; or Dr. Ringo, who thought that Lilly was an absolute nutcase for moving about a month before her death, and thought that it had zapped her strength in a sort of a sacrificial way and would make her die a few months earlier in order to get what she thought was a better deal for her children. Those people— Lilly could handle them. Margaret was much more difficult; she understood everything, but seemed to have little compassion. She was take-charge, and often pointed out the difficult things that Lilly would like to avoid, even though it might upset Lilly. Yet she always had an innate, thorough knowledge of the situation and Lilly trusted her because she was honest and usually insightful. "I'm a psychologist," she said dryly. "That question is sort of unavoidable here."

Lilly thought for a moment, "I don't know. It's so complicated. I want them to have a good relationship with Sara—but you've seen Sara, you've talked to her. She's incredibly fragile, too, and this whole thing feels like an imposition. I hope she'll sort of grow up here, but I don't know. And I want the girls to accept her, and like her, and stay close to her—but I'm so jealous. I'm supposed to be there. They're supposed to come to me and want to go to work with me, instead of babbling to me as I lie wheezing and coughing and throwing up at night."

"When was the last time you talked to the girls about the cancer?" Margaret asked.

Lilly shrugged. "Probably from before the time we moved. They're both being very helpful and attentive, but we avoid the subject, I guess. They watch out for me, I guess. They make dinner, try to stay out of my way, and sometimes clean the house. Grace likes to avoid the issue for her sake, she doesn't want to talk about it— and Jules and I used to argue because she always wanted to discuss deep, weighty, philosophical questions. I think she's avoiding talking about it because she thinks I don't want to. When I first got sick, Jules tried arguing, rebelling. She stopped about the time we moved."

"You should probably sit down and talk with them soon. Why don't you bring them, and Sara also, along to your next session? You don't have too much time left, Lilly—you don't want regrets."

It was true. Lilly was strong, and emotionally secure—she had made peace with God years ago, after her split with Thom. And she was aware. Lilly could feel the strength seeping from her body, see it leaving her bones, shedding and falling away. When she died—and she knew it would be soon—most of her body would be gone, leaving only her core, her spirit. She thought that in a way, cynical Dr. Ringo was right—she had accomplished her mission of making sure the girls were safe, and, now that that was taken care of, she could die at peace with _herself_. Her body was simply shutting down. One of her friend's father had died six days after his youngest child's wedding—he had just wanted to see his fourth daughter get married. He had lived for that and then had died. Lilly suspected that was the sort of thing going on with her. "Right." Lilly said, before trying to backtrack, "It's not like we don't talk about it. We talk about what we're _doing_ about it. We talk about the future, we make plans."

Margaret said gently, "This is bound to be incredibly difficult for the girls. How do you think they're _feeling _about it?"

"They—They're scared. They don't want it to happen, and they're damned uncertain because everything is changing—a new school, but only for a year, and I'm not going to be around much longer and –" Lilly choked a little bit, "adjusting to Sara, and everything."

"Do you know this for certain, or are you relying on what you know about the

girls?" Margaret said, probing softly.

Lilly shifted angrily. "Listen—we can't discuss how they're_ feeling_ all the time. A conversation now and then—they still know they can come to me for anything. But we've got to keep on going normally. They're big girls and they're going into the world alone next year. And I know them, every inch of them, every facet of their souls. I know what they're thinking and what their motivations are. They think they're so transparent—I know them."

"Do you think that maybe they don't know you know them so well?" Margaret suggested. "They're teenagers. Good teenagers, smart teenagers, but they're just as self-absorbed and inward as any other teenager. They don't believe that you're able to pretty much sense their emotions, so they're just burying them more because they think you don't know." Margaret took a breath, so that they could both process what she was saying. "You just need to talk to them, Lilly. You've made your peace with God, you've made your peace with yourself—you've accepted it. Most of my patients have trouble accepting death. But you haven't made your peace with the girls. And they're possibly the most important people in this relationship now."

"They always were." Lilly whispered, sadly and quietly. She blew the hair out of her eyes, convincing herself that was what was blurring her vision so badly. "It's just frustrating." She stared up at the clock. "I've got to go home."

Margaret nodded. "It's Tuesday, so I'll see you…. Thursday. Bring the girls and Sara. When do they start school?"

"Monday," Lilly shook her head. "They're gonna be seniors."

"They're gonna be fine." Margaret said resolutely, leaving no room for argument.


	12. 12

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

To the Readers: Thank you all for being patient with me and reading this story. I know that you're all clamoring for the Snickers shippery stuff. I've written six chapters past this, and I am guaranteeing that it's going to happen. However, this is primarily a Sara-focused story, and I love the characters of Lilly, Grace, and Jules. Their interaction with Sara is the main plot of the story and will continue to dominate as I try to develop Sara's maturation and personality to one that's more focused, stable, and adult than the Sara we see on the show, whom I love and want to know more about. This is my way of exploring the personal aspects of Sara's life. In the story, her life is extremely complicated right now, and she's got a lot to figure out. Stick with it. The Snickers stuff will happen, but Sara needs to grow up and figure a few things out first. Keep reading and reviewing—I love you guys! –Lyssa

* * *

Lilly sat in the living room, in her favorite chair, waiting for the girls to return. The chair was a large maroon recliner her parents had given to her as a gift when the girls were born, since it was big enough for both babies plus Lilly. Her favorite picture from their babyhood was of her in the chair, exhausted, with a baby tucked into each arm. She had moved the ratty chair into her room back in California after the girls hit kindergarten. Now, though, it was in the living room, spaced far enough from the kitchen so she wouldn't be nauseated by the scent of food, but close enough that she could look in and try to participate in their lives. It was near the TV, which was the actual gathering point of the household, so that she could rest her tired, sick self within view of the daughters she mother henned over. It also had a very good view of the kitchen table, because Lilly knew that Jules and Grace liked doing homework at the kitchen table, once school started.

She sighed and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. She always felt so _sick._ Sick to the bone, sick to the heart. How many little details about the girls' existences had she memorized, details so minute and lovely that only a mother would know? When they were thirty, having their own children that were finicky eaters, would anyone else remember that she had to buy both grape and strawberry jelly for years, because Jules liked grape and Grace liked strawberry? That Jules ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches and Grace adored canned tuna with mustard, tomato, and cucumber? Would they remember that Grace sang the bunny song until she was eight to remember how to tie her shoes? Would anyone care about Jules' endearingly klutzy attempts at singing, Grace's nerves before dance recitals, the messages they wrote on homemade Mother's Day cards—the Monday _after_ Mother's Day? When they had to stay up till one AM working on sugar-cube models of the pyramids, would either remember when they were in third grade Jules was obsessed with Ancient Egypt and Grace was obsessed with Greek gods and goddesses? Or their earliest obsessions—medieval princesses for Grace, _The Sound of Music _for Jules? Nobody else would care that Jules' favorite Disney princess was Belle (because she loved to read like Jules did) and Grace's favorite was Aurora (because she had a pink dress and she had a pretty dance).Who else would have an elevated heartbeat just remembering the time Jules convinced Grace that hitchhiking to Hollywood was a good idea? Would either of them remember that their first big fight was because she'd tried to teach them both calligraphy when they were seven, and Jules got jealous because Grace could do it, whereas Jules had absolutely no artistic talent? Margaret was right—Lilly couldn't let go. She was just being a good mother. If—when—she died, the girls' childhoods would die, too. Someone had to be the flame-keeper, guard these memories until they were old enough to care about those moments again.

She had given the girls money to go back-to-school shopping, explaining to Sara her policy on clothing allowances, and how much money the girls received per quarter to spend on clothes. It taught them responsibility and gave her an excuse not to cave in Grace's begging for cashmere-infused designer jeans and Jules' pleading for_ just one_ FCUK skirt. Sara had entrusted the girls to Greg—she was still feverishly working on this Skylar Westborough case, which seemed to hinge on the boyfriend, who had lawyered up. All Sara would say, tight-lipped, was, "It looks accidental. Tragic and wrong and accidental." So Sara had opted out of the shopping to sleep, but the girls needed clothing, and Greg was willing to take them. Lilly had found Greg humorous and endearing but probably clueless about shopping with seventeen-year-olds.

Lilly rolled sideways and shifted her hip, trying to get more comfortable. It wouldn't work and she knew that. She turned as she heard noises, and was quietly relieved that it was only Sara, and not the girls. She still wasn't sure what she would say to them.

"Good evening," she said.

"Hi, Lilly." Sara smiled tiredly. "I'll go get your pills; it's nearly five."

"Thank you," Lilly's voiced cracked.

"Here." Sara handed her three pills in a Dixie cup and a large glass of water. "Do you need more water?" she asked when Lilly was done. "How are you feeling?"

"Yes, please. I'm…okay." Lilly said. "How is your case going?"

Sara sighed and arched her neck before going back into the kitchen to fill Lilly's water. "She just died, Lill. There's signs that she was beaten up, contusions, abrasions, fingernail marks. She wasn't raped, though, and she was drunk. I think she and the boyfriend somehow snuck into the pool and she tried to swim while she was drunk. He's just not talking, though." She sighed again, frustrated, "I just…want someone to blame. And not her. She was young and she was talented and she had the world on an oyster, or whatever. She shouldn't have died from a series of accidental, stupid things that all teenagers seem to do." She looked around. "Anyways. The girls not back yet?"

"No. I hope they don't kill Greg." Lilly said.

"Honestly? Greg's probably at a food court with a frappo in one hand, or playing Keno, and they'll find him when they're done." Sara came back in with two glasses and handed one to Lilly.

"Well, that makes me feel much better." Lilly smiled tiredly.

"How was your stuff today?"

"Good." Lilly cleared her throat. "Sara…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know—how they girls are taking…everything? They seem to be such good sports. I don't think I've spent any time actually contemplating them; they seem to have been taking this so well it just seemed like one less thing to deal with. It's only been about the next day, and the day after that. Margaret and I talked about that today—maybe…I don't know. They must be so scared. I thought I was handling them fine, but now I don't know."

Sara swallowed. "I don't know, either. I barely know them. I think they're great, though, Lilly. They've been behaving or coping wonderfully. Maybe…maybe they'd like some reassurance, or something. I think they're scared and uncertain, but they're trying to hide it. It's only a hunch though. I barely know them, Lilly. It's sort of like the first week of college here."

"True. I'm sorry. I shouldn't've asked. I was just wondering." Lilly felt very tired.

"Did something happen today?" Sara got up to refill her water.

"Yes—no—nothing more than what should happen in therapy. My emotions got poked to the surface and made me think. Margaret wanted to know about how the girls are doing. I gave her what I thought. She thought they might be taking things a bit differently than what I'm reading them. She wants them to come in before schools starts up next Monday."

Sara rolled her eyes. "Shrinks. They're not happy unless they're analyzing something. Makes them miserable people. Someone needs to analyze _them_. It's so he-said-that-she-said-that-he-said-that-she-said."

"I think she might be right. I hope she is. I mean," Lilly welled up and swallowed slowly before continuing, "their mother's dying. I hope there's some…repressed emotions here. Is that selfish of me?"

"No, you just want your daughters to miss you."

"Right." Tears were streaming down Lilly's cheeks. Tentatively, Sara put her hand over Lilly's. "But they're taking everything so well. And I don't want to talk to them about it."

"Then don't." Sara suggested.

"No—I think they need it. Do you ever think—have you ever known someone who is very sick, like I am, but wills themself to live, for just a certain event? A daughter's wedding, a grandson's birth—something? And, once this event happens, they've got their peace, they can die?"

Sara nodded. "My best friend in college had an aunt she was close to. The aunt had ovarian cancer but lived to see Miranda graduate college and died about two months later."

"Right. So you know what I'm talking about. I think—I think I just willed myself to stay for the girls, so that I could find somewhere for them to be safe. I've accepted everything else about this damned disease, the pain, the death, God, everything—this is the only thing left. Margaret said so and I agree with her. I can't let them, go, Sara. But I'm not caring for them properly either—I'm just ignoring the issue, because the longer I let it fester, the longer I have."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting a longer life." Sara was thoroughly uncomfortable.

"Yes, there is. I'm hurting them. I'm hurting you. I'm hurting myself." Her voice was agitated, and she was shaking and twisting her shoulders.

"You're only hurting yourself by punishing yourself and being hard on yourself. I'm pretty sure the girls appreciate any time you have with them."

"I'm scared." Lilly was becoming almost erratic now.

"Scared of dying?"

She shook her head. "No. Scared of losing the girls. Scared of them not missing me."

"Lilly, you know that won't happen. They'll be lost without you."

Lilly started to shake harder. "See? Either way it is, by getting sick, by having to focus on myself and having to die, I hurt them."

"Lilly—Lilly. Why are you doing this now? You've been so levelheaded, so…courageous, for the past few weeks. You've been the best mother those girls could have."

"I used to want to die quickly. Without pain and instantaneously in my sleep. Then I got sick, and I started think, 'you know, maybe this is best. I can get my ducks in a row before I die. I can be with the girls, give them better memories of me.' Now, I want to die instantaneously again. Let them deal with it after I die. Right now, we have to deal with the death and dying all at once and their last memories of me are going to be pain-filled and horrible."

"You're not being fair to the girls," Sara tried as Lilly continued to sob quietly. "They're stronger than that. You made them that way. They love you more than you're giving them credit for."

"I've ignored them lately." Lilly said quietly. "I've passed them off on you, I've forced them to be more independent. I should just be holding them right now, making sure they're going to be okay. I should be looking out for them. This entire time, the whole time I've been sick, I've just been selfish. I'm only thinking about me. It's led to so many conflicts—I've rearranged so many people's lives. It's wrong. And it only hit me today."

"Lilly—Lilly—what happened?" Sara tried to keep her voice calm and steadying, but she was close to panicking. "You've been great about this—you've planned everything, and you've been extremely considerate and levelheaded and everything. Why the change?"

They were both startled by noises at the door; it was Jules, Grace, and Greg. "Hey, Mom, hey Sara." Jules called joyfully as she bustled into the living room.

Sara quickly stood up, wiping her palms. "Hey guys. How was shopping? Where'd you go?"

"Greg took us to the Strip," Grace said, and Greg smiled bemusedly.

"The Strip?" Sara repeated. "What for? The traffic's insane. And you're not old enough to gamble, and we didn't buy show tickets."

"The shopping," Jules said it as if she was stating the obvious.

"Plus, we'd never seen it." Grace added. "But the shopping was amazing. There's a great Sephora at the Venetian." She pulled out a bag with the svelte S-logo of the cosmetics store out of their large pile. "And going into place like Wynn Las Vegas and the Bellagio to look at the pricey stores was awesome."

"What all did you buy?" Sara eyed a huge The Gap bag suspiciously.

"Oh, tons." Grace said brightly. "We hit everything—those outlet malls, too, and Fashion Show Mall. That place was nice—there was an Express and PacSun and all—but sort of anticlimactic after all the ones in the casinos."

"We went casino hopping, too." Jules sounded bright and bubbly. "Greg got us pizza in New York-New York."

"Then we got some great gelato at this Italian café thing in the Desert Passage. The coffee gelato was _delicious_." Grace enthused.

"Thanks, Greg." Sara said awkwardly before switching into a more relaxed, teasing mode. "Way to sugar them up and send them home."

"I'm glad they didn't mention the million Pixi-Stix then." Greg grinned. "I'll see you at work tonight, Sar." He turned to the girls, "That was eye-opening." He smiled. "We should do that again sometime."

"See ya, Greggo." They chorused.

"Wow," Sara said as soon as he had departed. "He told you about his nickname. There's trust."

"It was cool," Jules smiled. "Plus, I got a ton of clothes. Do you want to see them, Mom?"

There was suddenly a break, as both girls got a good look at their mother. The giddy bubbly conversation ceased Sara cleared her throat. "I'm going to take a shower. Go into work. Hopefully this'll get cracked."

"Mom?" Jules turned to her mother as soon as Sara had trucked upstairs. "Everything alright?"

"Yes. No. Sort of." Lilly drew a shaky breath. "Girls—how do you feel?"

"Fine, why?" Grace asked, confused.

"No—not physically. I mean—I mean," Lilly struggled to elucidate everything. "I mean about me being sick. About me forcing you to move here and restart everything, before your senior year. I mean, Sara, and this, and everything that's going on. How are you feeling?"

The girls looked at each other, raised their eyebrows, and Jules said, "I _knew_ we were going to have to have this conversation sometime." They both sat down, Jules on the ottoman about five feet away from Lilly, and Grace swung a chair over from the dining set nearby.

"Girls, please. I'm—worried. Scared."

"Of dying?" Grace questioned, carefully avoiding her mother's eyes and keeping her face neutral.

"No—not really. I've been reading my Bible; I've been talking to Margaret and Pastor Vince; I've been praying and everything. I guess I've made my peace about dying. I'm not scared to die. I'm scared to leave you two here. I'm scared for you two." She paused and looked at the girls. Grace looked ready to cry, and Jules's face was crumpled and puffy already. Jules had always cried more easily than her sister—it was something that surprised others, since Jules was the more abrasive, outgoing twin, but Lilly understood it perfectly, since Jules was also the more high-strung one. She started to tear up herself. "I think I've been so scared that I've avoided bringing it up. But I don't know how much longer I have to bring it up. I want you girls to tell me anything that you're feeling—anything at all. Please, sweets, kitten. Just tell me how you're feeling. Are you angry with me? I'll understand if you're angry with me. Are you sad, or scared, or upset?"

The girls looked at each other, speaking silently in a way their cousin had dubbed their 'voodoo twin thing.' Finally, Jules went first. "Mom—first off, we're not angry at you. I've been angry with everyone but you. God, and the doctors, everyone. I was sort of pissed at you when you launched this plan to move in with Sara, but I got over it. It's really sucky to have been able to leave high school a year early, but then have to restart at another high school, where we're not such known people. I guess that was the only thing I was ever _angry_ about. But, I'm over it. It's not like this year was going to be about prom and graduation and swim meets and all the gushy sentimental crap if we stayed at home and you were still sick." She was silent again. "I'm still mad at God, though." She burst out into full-fledged tears. "I'm so mad at Him for taking away both our parents, and nobody else's. It's not like everyone else, where their parents got divorced. Hell, even the kids who parents _abandoned_ them have it better than us now. Their parents are still around." She bit her lip. "That was horrible. I should take that back but I can't. I'm just so mad that you had to get sick." She hugged her knees and buried her head, continuing to sob. "You're not going to be there for _anything_ that I want you at—my high school graduation, or when I get married, or have children, or even the crappiest parts of my adult life. You're never going to be there for support. Everyone else's mother is going to be there, and they won't care. They won't notice even. It's not fair." Her voice sounded echo-like.

"Oh, sweets. Oh, Julie." Lilly gasped and struggled to sit up. "Come here, sweets. Gracie, kitten." She beckoned to her other daughter, silent and shaking in her chair. "You come here too, kitten." She awkwardly cradled the teenagers, now both much larger than her. Jules's sobs were enough to wrack all their bodies, and Grace, who was holding herself together so tightly and refusing to break down, slowly crumbled and shook very quickly and cried very softly. She stroked their hair until tears intermingled with the locks like sweat beads and their gasps for air slowly died down. "Gracie, you got anything to say?" she kissed both girls' temples.

"Not really," she straightened by propping herself on her elbow and tried to fluff her bangs back to normal. By alternately blinking and bulging out her eyes, she adjusted her contacts. "The same things as Jules. I was _never_ mad at you, Mom. _Ever_. I'm just scared. I'm so scared of what's going to happen the Day After. Who's going to be there for us? Sara's great, Mom, thanks for bringing her back into the fold. We'd much rather be here with her than with either of the uncles. But…there's seventeen years here. You carried us and gave birth to us. There's just so much…" she began to sob again, "There's just so much that's here, and there's a history, and there are things that are understood. And that's what a mother's supposed to be. And we won't…" she was crying so hard she could not finish.

"We won't have that anymore." Jules finished. "And we don't know what we'll be when we don't have that."

"Girls," she said, and repeated herself as their tears crescendoed. "Listen to me," she looked them both in the eye. "I wish there was an easy answer to your questions. Hell, I wish there was an answer. But there's not, and there's never gonna be. And you know that." She hugged them close and pressed her eyes together so tightly that tears squeezed out the sides. "I wish I was going to be here. I wish it so very badly. I wish I could see you grow up all the way. I want to see you go to college, and fall in love, and get jobs and get married and have your own babies and laugh all the time. And the bad things, too. The bad things sometimes remind you that you're living, too, you know. You're such beautiful girls. So smart, so talented. I couldn't have asked for better."

"You made us this way." Jules choked out. "It was all you, Mom. You've always been so strong. And smart and kind and fair and everything else." She nestled herself back into her mother's body to cry some more.

"I don't deserve such praise." Lilly murmured. "Girls, the only two things I can tell you anymore are—" she swallowed and couldn't continue for a minute, "are to be strong and have faith. You girls must have faith. With faith comes everything else. Comfort, love, hope, strength. Everything. Without it, you are not able to believe in anything. Have a little faith. Things happen for a reason." She bit her tongue. "I wish I had more wisdom that platitudes from Ecclesiastes, but they're true, girls. So very true." She nudged her chin downwards in between their cheeks. They stayed like that, their tears mingling together and running down the crevices of the twins' cheeks, for a very long time.


	13. 13

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

* * *

"Hey, Nick," Greg shuffled into the locker room and hitched his locker open.

Nick turned around as he finished buttoning his shirt. "Hey, man. What's up?"

"Eh, not much." Greg sat down. "Sara roped me in to taking Jules and Grace back-to-school shopping. I took 'em to the Strip, showed them Caesar's, Aladdin's, Fashion Show, and then basically all the casinos. I'm shot, dude. Well," he reiterated, "I guess I made her hand over the duties. She mentioned they needed clothes, and she's completely wiped."

"Yeah?" Nick said curiously.

"Yeah. This case—the swimmer one—she's really…being Sara about it."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You ever—worry about Sara?" Greg questioned hesitantly.

Nick signed and leaned against the locker. "Yeah. A lot, actually. 'Specially now, with the girls, and Lilly…" he straightened, "It's just something that you worry about. You just don't want to admit you're worried about Sara."

"If she found out, she shoot you," Greg volunteered helpfully.

"Exactly," Nick confirmed, and leaned back again, thinking. "I think I might go over there. Make sure they're all okay. Those girls are real sweethearts. This whole damn mess is a shame. Did you see Lilly?"

Greg shrugged bleakly. "Still disappearing."

"Hot damn," Nick said. Just then, Sara bustled into the locker room. "Sara," he said, surprised.

She turned. He tried to get a good look at her, but her hair was hanging in front of her face, like she hadn't washed it recently. As if she could read his mind, she opened her locker and began to brush it back into a ponytail, using the mini-mirror as a guide. Her face was certainly paler, and she seemed to completely lack makeup. Her cheeks seemed a little hollower, her eyes a little sadder—but maybe he was just imagining things. "Hey Nick. Hey Greg. Thanks again for this afternoon."

"It was like forty-five minutes ago," Greg replied bewilderedly. "How did you get out of your pajamas, shower, and get here in forty five minutes?"

"Magic." She smiled. "I wanted to get some test results—the substance under her fingernails."

"The results would have been here if you had waited two hours," Greg said pointedly.

"You're here five hours before shift starts," It wasn't a challenge, more like a statement.

"Catherine called me in," he shrugged. "I came straight from your place. She was at the end of her rope." He stood up and headed for the door. "I've got to go meet Warrick at a crime scene."

"See ya, Greg," she called as he was leaving.

"Take a nap, Sar." He called back, and the echoes of his footfalls faded away.

"So," Nick said, "It's been about two weeks."

Sara looked panicked for a second, but wet her lips and cautiously said, "Since what? Is there something I should remember?"

"Nah, not really. You just told me to ask you again how you were feeling in two weeks."

Relief and sadness flickered over her face. "Oh, yeah. I remember now." She sat down heavily. Apparently, all someone needed to do was ask. "I'm in deeper than I thought, Nicky." There was just something about Nicky that made him a regular Veritaserum. "Lilly's sicker than I honestly expected. And, she's really going to die. I never—I just never thought past the next day. As usual, I guess. But I never—now, suddenly, I'm thinking all these_ parental_ thoughts, and I've got no clue what the answers are. Or what questions I'm supposed to answer. Lilly's just so weak. I'm taking care of her, too. I don't mind, of course, I expected care giving or whatever they call it to be involved. But now it's here and it's real, and it's," she looked up at Nick. "It's scary. It's so scary. And sad. The girls are so great. But I'm going to mess up. I can't handle all of this. It's so hard. I'm not strong enough."

"Oh, Sar." He pulled her closer to him, and she came willingly, but she was like stone. Her body was robotic and hard, as if she was trying very hard not to cave into her emotions. "You know what you need?"

"Probably a vacation, some sleep, a coffee, this case to get solved, a pay raise, and to wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream." She stopped. "Wait. Can I take that back? I want to. I'm glad, I guess, to meet Lilly and the girls—again. I guess that's good part. It's bittersweet, at the very least."

"There's nothing wrong with something good coming from this," he said, "But what I was going for was you need blueberry pancakes."

"I have chocolate chip waffles every morning for breakfast. More carbs is exactly the opposite of what I need."

"Afraid of gaining weight and being a normal size, Sidle?" he teased gently.

"Whether my butt looks good in Levis right now is really the least of my worries," she retorted.

"Whatever. You need to be taken out for breakfast, or dinner, or whatever the hell we call meals around here anymore."

"Is this a proposition, Nicky?"

"Yeah." He said. "After your shift. If someone doesn't send you home for being exhausted before that."

"Deal." She said. She was too tired to argue. "Where do we meet?"

"I'll pick you up here." He said. At her wary look, he continued, "You shouldn't drive. And I doubt you would even leave."

"You worry too much, Nicky." She said.

"You've got a lot to deal with. Someone has to look after you, too." He said.

"Thank you," she said quietly, before wriggling out of his embrace, "for caring." She walked to the door and stood framed by the light. "You're one in a million, Nicky."

"Hey, so are you, Sar." He said. "We all admire the hell out of you for what you're doing for Lilly and Grace and Jules."

She blinked a few times, almost as if she was going to cry. "I've got to go check on that test result."

He nodded solemnly. The whole exchange had been way too emotional for Sara; "I'll see you after shift."

"Yeah," she said absently, before walking off. He couldn't help but notice her butt still looked damn good in those Levis.


	14. 14

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Well, guys, this is it: The start of the Snickeryness and the whole story of everything that's happened between Lilly and Sara's families. Enjoy! As always, read and review!

* * *

Nick came back to the lab at 7:30, knowing that Sara was still there. He found her in the break room, intently scanning over a report. "Hey, now," he said, "You promised me breakfast."

She looked up. "Right. I'll just put this away."

"Great," he grinned, and followed her to the lockers. "What are you in the mood for?"

She breathed in heavily, then exhaled. "Food."

"Cheeky." He rolled his eyes. "Come on."

"Thanks for taking me out again," she said as they approached his Denali.

"Don't mention it," he replied easily. On the way to breakfast, they discussed ordinary, everyday things like cases and when the girls started school.

"Niccolo's," Sara said in surprise as soon as they pulled up the restaurant.

"Yeah. They've got a great breakfast spread. Come on," Nick said, lightly touching her wrist. Sara balked a little, knowing that the restaurant was slightly expensive.

The restaurant was fairly empty, and they were seated quickly at a small booth in the corner. Sara looked at the menu for about thirty seconds, smiled, and closed it gently.

"You've decided already?" Nick asked, astonished.

"Yeah. Buttermilk pancakes, with strawberries on top, one scrambled egg on the side, and a glass of chocolate milk. It's been my favorite breakfast since I was about three."

"You take stubbornness to a whole new level," Nick teased. "You don't even change your favorite breakfast."

She shrugged. "When I was little and I went over to Lilly's house, her mother would always make that on my first morning there."

"Did you guys all grow up next to each other?" Nick had had three sets of cousins near him growing up. Every Sunday night, they converged at one house for a big family meal.

She shook her head and avoided his gaze. "Not really. They lived about forty-five minutes away. My parents just left us there a lot. Troy—my brother—was about the same age as Lilly's two brothers, and Lilly was eleven years older than me. I loved to follow her around." She smiled at him, "My family's not a happy topic. Let's talk about something else."

"Your pick. I'm treating you." He said.

"Fine. Your family." She smiled. "It's been about my family for weeks now, it seems. Everyone keeps asking about them. So it's your turn."

Nick shrugged. "We're boring and very stereotypical. What do you want to know?"

"Well, I know your mom's a lawyer and your dad's a judge. You grew up in Dallas. You have an older brother and five older sisters. You've told me about them before, but I can't keep them straight; I guess it comes from being from such a tiny family. You don't talk about them too much, either, unless you have to leave for a familyish event like Christmas. So, take it away."

"Kay," he said comfortably, in his unfazed way. "Let's see: My brother's the oldest and I'm the youngest. Tim's in real estate development, which my parents don't really approve of since they think it's shady. He and his wife live in Dallas, and they have two kids, one in college and one in high school. He's thirteen years older than me. I was about ten when he got married, and so we've never been close. Diana's the next one. She's two years younger than Tim—again, we're not close. She was married when she was eighteen and she's got children who are married by this point. Well, one's married, one's out of school, and the youngest two are finishing up college. My parents aren't thrilled that they're going to be great-grandparents pretty damn soon. Hell, they weren't thrilled when she got married eleven days after graduating from high school. But they think that since they're only seventy and the fact they're practically great-grandparents is obscene."

"They've aged well," Sara commented.

"How did you—Oh, right." Nick said, realizing when Sara would have met his parents. "Anyways. After Diana comes Lisa; she's nine years older than me. Not really close to her, either, but she moved back in after college for about a year when she was at nursing school. So I do know her better than the other two. She's pretty cool, actually. We've always gotten along really well. We have the same temperament and sense of humor and everything. She's married to a pharmacist in Dallas and they have three kids." Sara nodded at Nick to continue, and he obediently followed down the long line of Stokes girls. "Three years later is Suzanne. She's an interior decorator in Austin, where my parents now live. They've still got our place back in Dallas, though. Suzanne has four kids, too, mostly elementary aged. Her husband was a high school teacher and principal, but now serves on the state's Education Commission. Perks of being my father's son-in-law, but Andy's a good guy anyways." The waitress arrived then, and they ordered their food. After she left, he continued, "Next is Miranda. The family busybody and drama queen."

"Everyone has to have one." Sara smiled.

"She does make Thanksgivings more interesting." Nick admitted. "Anyways, she's three years older than I am. She lives in Dallas with her husband and, again, four kids. Large families beget large families—that's what my mother always says. Russ is a business guy who works for a tech firm in Dallas. Kinda boring, in my opinion—neither of them seem to value the important things, but they're good for each other. Jackie's next. She thirteen months older than me, and we were as close as could be for pretty much our whole childhoods. She's so great—she's liberal, which kills my father sometimes, and used to work as a political reporter for the _Dallas News_. Her stuff used to get picked up by the _New York Times _and the Washington _Post_ and she did stuff like go to the White House Correspondent's Dinner. She's been married for about seven years, now, though, and has two little kids. She mostly freelances now, and teaches a few courses at SMU for their public policy department. Her husband, Ben, is a lawyer. I find it really funny that she's the only one that actually did anything close to dealing with the law and politics, since her politics are the opposite of my parents'. Ben's a nice guy."

"They sound great," Sara said. "When you were growing up, did you always do the family stuff, with big dinners with the cousins and everything?"

"Yeah," Nick replied, "Every Sunday."

Their food arrived then, and Sara laughed at how Nick's eyes lit up when he saw his plate. They spent the next twenty minutes eating and talking, and then lingered, laughing and teasing and bantering, for the next forty minutes. Nick was secretly thrilled at how Sara seemed to relax and come out of the shell she'd been enveloped in for the past few years in just a matter of minutes.

As they were walking out, Nick's arm slipped easily over Sara's shoulder. She poked him in the side and then pointed across the street to a park, one of the lone green patches in Las Vegas. "Wanna go for a walk?" She said hesitantly. "I mean, Lilly took the girls into Grace House today, for talks with the psychiatrist, and then they have swim practice and tennis practice and everything. And it's so nice out."

"Sure," Nick said, keeping his arm protectively around her shoulder.

"We had a park sort of like this near Lilly's house, growing up." Sara said thoughtfully as they started to walk. "When I was very little—during those weekend stay-overs, Lilly would take me and Leslie over there to swing."

"Was she the other girl in the picture from that Christmas?"

"The one in the wheelchair?" Sara clarified, and Nick nodded. "Yeah, that was Leslie, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Nathan's youngest child. She was…she was just born like that. No special condition, but a slew of health things. She was very severely retarded. She was born early, I think, like at twenty-five weeks or something. Babies weren't supposed to survive at all back then, but she did. It was progressive and she got worse with age—organs and things just wouldn't grow to the right size, and there were some developmental things anyways. She died when I was sixteen. I remember her funeral. I was living with the Diamondsons—I think I only stayed with them for about two months— at the time; Uncle Nathan drove the two hours to come pick me up. I don't think we talked at all until her drove me back to them. She was about twenty-one at the time." Sara stopped talking suddenly.

"Hey, Sar?" Nick said tentatively.

She looked up, and she knew what the next question would be. "Yeah?"

"Why did you move in with Lilly's family?"

She glanced around. "Can we sit?" she pointed towards a bench.

"Yeah." He steered her that way.

Sara usually hated discussing this stuff; she didn't know why she always went to Nick and confessed everything. But he made it so easy—it was like he understood totally, without being judgmental or offering false sympathy. She could lay everything out, and he would just accept it. "My home—you can't really call it that, though—wasn't too great. My parents weren't too great at holding down jobs. My dad had a drug problem; Mom drank a lot, too. When Troy was really little, he lived with Uncle Nathan and Aunt Maggie for almost a year. They didn't want to turn our parents in to Social Services, but if my parents didn't drop us off Friday afternoon, they drove down to pick us up. They didn't yell at my parents, or try to get them to change, or turn them in. I wish they had though." Her voice was mournful and very far away. "I know you've probably guessed by now that my dad was abusive—" She looked up at Nick, who nodded reluctantly. She put her head on his shoulder and continued. "He liked to smack my mother around. He yelled at me a lot when he was drunk, told me I was ugly, stupid, fat—luckily I was little. Those things would have mattered a lot more if I were older. There was nothing we could do. Troy—he was already pretty far gone, down that path, by the time he was about thirteen. They kept the stuff away from us, they never _gave_ us anything, but it was there, so Troy used it. We didn't go to school too often. The truant officer knew what was going on but he didn't tell anyone. I don't know why nobody did anything for years." She was quiet for a very long time. "Finally, my mother sobered up. I was about six or seven. She was so wonderful for a while. She was pretty messed up, from the years of using and drinking, but she tried. At least, with me. As I said, Troy—it was damage control for him. Anyways," she stopped for a very long time, "my dad didn't change. When he was sober, he was great, he really was. But that wasn't too often. He still beat up my mother. Finally, she just snapped. One week, Dad was just really bad. She locked me in my room that night; she was so scared of him. I fell asleep when they were still screaming. I was eight. When I woke up, a police officer was standing next to my bed. She'd shot him, in the front yard, as he was chasing after her. They took me down to their precinct station. Uncle Nathan came to pick me up about two hours later. They couldn't find Troy for a while." She was very quiet.

Nick held her for several minutes as she cried fat, silent tears. Finally she sniffled and said, "I haven't told the whole story like that, all at once, ever. I'm not even sure why I just did. You're just too easy to talk to, Nick."

"Well, thank you for sharing." He said. "I know that took a lot."

"Thank you for listening and not looking at me differently." She whispered. He kissed her forehead. He'd never seen her so raw and open before.

They sat still for several more minutes, with Sara twirling her necklace absentmindedly. Finally, Nick said, "So you moved in with them?"

"Yeah," she swallowed and burrowed deeper into his shoulder. "The social worker came later that night. Our mother's custody was suspended. We needed to go into the foster system, but Uncle Nathan wanted to take us in. The social worker didn't really want to dump us on them, but they were family; it was an easy solution. They knew they couldn't adopt us since there was no money and that pittance actually meant something. Troy really wanted to live with them too, since Doug and Dan would go to school with him." She swallowed. "Lilly was already away at college at that point. And the two of us living with them was harder than anyone could have imagined. Troy was so rebellious, so rude, so out of control. Too many years with my parents, I guess. And Leslie was sick all the time. She required so much care. They weren't rich, at all, and their easy child was out of the house, and now they had me living in Lilly's room. I couldn't've been too great, but Aunt Maggie worked so hard with me. I can't believe she found any time. But she loved us, really she did. She got me reading, got me to do well in school. I don't know where I would have been if it hadn't been for Aunt Maggie. And they were in Tamales, right by the ocean and everything. I loved it there."

"Why did you leave?" Nick questioned.

"Me." She said simply. "I was a snoopy little kid. I was the youngest, by a lot, and everyone else was so exciting. I found out so many secrets about Lilly, since I was in her room—there was a vibrator, and a diaphragm, diaries and everything like that. But one day, when I was almost eleven, I snuck into the boys' room. I found cocaine underneath Troy's bed. Both my aunt and uncle probably suspected that he was on pot already—he was a horrible student, just a total mess. We would just kick him out until he'd sobered up, or he wouldn't come home. They never wanted to call the cops, though; he'd be taken away—the same idea they had with my parents. I used to hate them because they wouldn't interfere. I thought that if they had, my family would have been whole. But it wasn't their fault; it was my parents'. I used to hate them too, but years of therapy get you over that. Anyways," she paused ruefully, "Aunt Maggie walked in on me. She wanted to clean their room. She saw me holding the bag, pulled it all out of me. They kicked Troy out that night. They called the cops on him, since he ran before they could call a social worker. He was a junior in high school. They put him in juvie for a year and he's been in and out of jail ever since then. I haven't seen him in ten years. They held on to me for another month or so. But Aunt Maggie just collapsed. She had a breakdown. She couldn't take it any more. The social worker placed me with the Macintyres."

"And you stayed in the system until you went to Harvard?" Nick was astonished; most of his experience with foster children was the washed-out, raggedy coulda-beens that sadly populated Las Vegas—that populated any town.

"Yeah. They sort of kept in touch with me—they never kicked me out of the family. I saw them at holidays and they always made sure I came to big family things like Lilly's wedding. They helped with my tuition and cosigned for loans when I went to Harvard. And I'd really been turned on to reading; I loved how you could get positive attention in school if you did well. I'd seen what drugs did to you; if Troy hadn't had cocaine we could still be living with Aunt Maggie. I kept my nose clean and my head down and always found a quiet place to study. I had thirteen houses in five years. I turned seventeen in May and left in August. When you're a ward of the state Harvard gives you a full ride." She was very silent, and Nick absently massaged her shoulder with his thumb. Suddenly, she looked up at him, "Okay, so I just shared all my deepest demons that only therapists forced on me have heard before. It's your turn."

He smiled. "I think we've had enough for today, don't you?"

She laughed a little, "Probably." She felt lighter and calmer, not at all as depressed and regretful as she'd always imagined she'd feel if she told her coworkers. She felt fresh and almost relaxed for the first time in weeks. Nick stood up first, and held out hand to her. She took it as he pulled her up with both hands. He swiveled one hand and slid her fingers between his. They walked comfortably to the car. As Nick was opening her door for her, he looked at her and smiled. Then, impulsively, he leaned in and kissed her.

Sara quickly and hungrily reciprocated, using her tongue to wriggle in between his lips. They stood there making out for several minutes before she pulled back, her hands on his upper forearms. "Nick, no, I'm sorry." She twisted out of his embrace.

"Hey, now," he said softly, "What's up?"

"I don't want this." She said firmly.

"Oh." Nick dragged the word out, and then wiped his mouth off. "Well, then, I'm sorry if I was to forward. Come on, I'll drive you back to pick up your car."

"No—Nick, no please—that—came out wrong."

"How was it supposed to come out?"

"Well," Sara tilted her head downwards to hide behind her hair while she collected her thoughts. "First: I have too much right now. I don't want—_I can't have_—another thing to…even to think about right now. I know we just kissed, but from there it's either friends with benefits or a relationship, unless we forget about it—which I'm not sure I want. And I can't have either of those right now. Everything's different now. There's Lilly and there's the girls. Honestly, they have to be my first priority. I don't believe I'm actually saying this, but they are. And everything's already complicated enough—there's work and everything that comes with that. I can't deal with something else. Second," she continued before he could start talking, "I don't want to be your damsel in distress. I know you, Nick. You want to ride up on a white horse and make everyone happier and make sure everything gets fixed. You're a fixer. And I don't need to be rescued, or treated like Guinevere. I'd go mad. I really would." She looked miserable. "It was a good kiss, though." She offered it as some sort of consolation.

"Now, wait a minute," Nick said.

"No—Nick. This is already tough enough."

"No—let me talk. Lemme get a word in. Jeez." When she nodded, he continued, "I know that everything's tough for you right now. But I've gotta say, Sara, I'm attracted to you. I think there could be something there. However," he said as she opened her mouth to speak. "I get it. Your life—it's crowded right now. You don't have room for a relationship. So—here's my proposition."

"You're propositioning me?" She said doubtfully.

"This is Vegas," he cracked before continuing, "We go out. Once a week. You don't even have to call it a date. Friends. You need to get out and be treated, once a week. Work's always tough, and everyone's depending on you at home—so this will be stress relief. I don't care where we go; you can even pick, but I'd like to surprise you once in a while. It's just a friends thing." He said when he saw her look. "I'm attracted to you. I'm going to not badger you about it for a while, though. Once—everything—calms down some more, we'll talk. A nice, big, weighty talk. Until then—friends, and I take you out once a week."

"Deal." She said quickly. She wasn't sure if it was the _smartest_ move, but Nick was extremely attractive, incredibly kind, and had been a good friend lately. And she had to admit she'd been mulling over being a 'little bit more' for a while now, though she knew she would have never made the first move. She was definitely intrigued, but he was a coworker, for God's sake; it hadn't turned out well the first time. But Nick—Nick was so different from Grissom. He paid attention to her, for one thing, and was kind and nice and very funny. He was sweet and smart and would treat her fairly no matter what the situation. He respected her. And she loved that about him.


	15. 15

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Well, guys, I'm going on vacation for a week, so I thought I'd post the next TWO sections of the story! Enjoy!

A psychiatrist friend who dabbled in New Ageiness had once told Grissom that the animal he was most closely associated with was a duck. When he had asked for an reason, she explained, "You appear quite calm and put together on the surface. Underneath, though—you're paddling like crazy. You're always thinking; you're a cagy thinker. You're always busy and making sure you know your next move." He had thought that was an unusual but apt observation.

His mind had been fixated nearly to the point of distraction on one topic lately—Sara. Grissom, despite her former crush on him, still felt very paternal towards her. He had noticed that she'd distanced herself from him at work in the past six months; he had told himself that she was growing as a professional. He had been proud of her.

But the thing with her cousin, and those two girls? He didn't know what to make of it. He was hurt that she hadn't come to him, hadn't invited him to see her new house, hadn't invited him to the dinner party she'd apparently thrown. When he said something slightly bitter and snarky about it to Catherine, she had responded, "Get over yourself, Gil. You're her boss. She respects you _as a boss_. She had the boys over b'cause they're all friends." Amazingly, Catherine couldn't care less.

He had finally met the girls; the night she brought them into the lab. They seemed smart and pleasant enough, he assumed. He'd been sort of aloof with them. They had obviously been a little awkward and were putting something on in front of him, so he had excused them quickly so they wouldn't be uncomfortable any longer. Later, he'd heard the taller one—Julia?—tell Sara, "Your boss is sort of odd. Distant, I guess."

Sara had replied, "That's just Grissom being Grissom." Before, she would have rationalized his behavior. But she had changed. She had moved on.

The thing that hurt him most, though, was that she was obviously under a lot of stress and she hadn't turned to him for advice or comfort—comfort being support, not the…other kind. She was coping with a dying cousin, buying a house, virtually adopting two teenagers who were practically adults anyways who probably were hell-raisers because of everything going on. Instead, she'd turned to Nick and Greg, and included even Warrick in her life.

He wanted to be included. He wanted to be her friend, but wasn't sure how.

She flashed in front of his office as she fled to one of the lab—a tall, angularly narrow flash of a person. "Sara, come in here for a moment."

"Yeah?—I've got to get those test results from the Shaul case, and there's some evidence I have to put back into the locker for the Westborough—"

"No, just sit down for a minute."

"Fine," Sara swung a chair towards her using her foot. She knew she was being slightly short with Grissom, but she had a lot on her mind. It was Saturday night; the girls started school Monday so she was taking tomorrow off but was probably going to come in because the Westborough case had her around the neck, and, when she arrived home that morning, Lilly had informed her that Dr. Ringo wanted a home health nurse moving in with them. The girls and Sara had gone futon shopping that afternoon so the nurse could sleep in Lilly's room, and the nurse—Jessie—was moving in on Monday. The house was a mess and Sara at least wanted to make the impression that things were still totally under control. There were still a million boxes everywhere. Plus, Nick had called to make plans for their night, "before you find an excuse." Sara had replied blushingly that she didn't want to find an excuse, or she would have found one already. They were going to have dinner and a movie Thursday night. All of which would be wonderful, but she had been on the futon shopping excursion during the conversation. The girls had heard everything and had eagerly asked questions, made gushy noises, and Jules even cooed. They had spent the rest of the day teasing Sara and telling her how wonderful Nick was. "What's up?" she asked Grissom. He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"How are you doing?"

"Well, we got the substance out of her fingernails—it's from a hookah, one of those flavored cigarettes. Nate, her boyfriend, says they did smoke them that night. There's some evidence of it in her lungs, too, remember. We also found some fibers in her throat that Hodges is analyzing right now. There's also a sticky substance around her mouth that's being analyzed. Video cameras at Wynn show them leaving there about eight, already drunk. They went to the Bellagio and the Aladdin—she was last seen alive at about nine-fifty back at the Bellagio fountains. The boyfriend still maintains that he last saw her in her room at Wynn around ten. That was her bedtime because of the five AM practices. The TOD from suffocation was between 10 and 10:30."

"No—I mean—with everything else?"

"Like the Shaul case? I've only been to the house once. Everything's preliminary

right now." Sara and Greg had opened a new case the previous night—a breaking and entering that led to an assault.

"No—everything else. Like your cousin?"

Oh. "She's fine. Thanks, though."

"Cause, if you need it—the time's there. You can take time off."

"Thank you. But as of now we're all doing fine, so I will still be coming in to work."

"Okay," Grissom said uneasily and tried again, "How are those girls? Have they started school yet?"

"They start Monday. That's why I took tomorrow night off." She said, trying not to show how uncomfortable she was.

"They're good students, right?"

"Yeah. They're looking at college and everything. They would probably be obsessing over it, but—you know. They've got other things on their minds."

"How's your cousin feeling?"

"Lilly's doing fine, Grissom. As well as can be expected." She looked at the clock. "May I go get my test results now?" she knew it was blunt, borderline rude even, but she had to get working.

Grissom looked slightly taken aback, and then hardened his face into a bland,

blasé look. "Yes. Of course. Keep me updated on your cases."

"Of course." She smiled and walked out.

"Hey, Sar, what's up?" Greg bounced up to her as she walked to DNA.

"Not much." She lied, looking back at Grissom's office to make sure she was out of hearing range. "I think Grissom just tried to show concern."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, he obviously _feels _concern, but he tried to express it. I think. He was asking me about the girls, and Lilly, and when they started school and stuff."

"Monday, right?"

"Yeah. It was just weird." Sara rubbed her eyes. "I don't know. I'm not gonna think about it right now."

"Maybe he's just growing up, too."

"Yeah. You two should start a Maturity Club."

"Huh?"

"You know—cause you're growing up too, and becoming a serious CSI."

"Sara—I meant you. Growing up."

"Huh?" It was Sara's turn to be confused.

"It's hardest to notice when it's yourself that's changing." Greg's voice was almost wise. "But, you've grown up lately. Taking in the girls, and being strong for them, and looking out for them and Lilly and all."

"Oh." Sara mulled it over. "Greg, you might be right. I hadn't noticed."

"See? You're always the last one to know when you've changed. Now, let's look at those results." Sara realized they'd arrived at Trace, where Hodges was going to tell them what the substance in Skylar's throat was.


	16. 16

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Well, guys, I'm going on vacation for a week, so I thought I'd post the next TWO sections of the story! This one's just a short one that I thought would help explain the girls' differing reactions to their mother's illness. Enjoy! As always, please read and review!

* * *

"I think they'll be nice," Jules stared at her reflection in the mirror. She could see Grace's reflection too. Her twin was sitting on her bed, lazily reading a magazine and humming to the Alicia Keys songs that were lilting into the room. "Don't you? I mean, don't you think they'll be nice? It's a small school. The principal and everyone seemed friendly. And the girls on the swim team are quite nice. It's weird, of course, I'll give you that, but I think they'll be nice. Don't you think so? They certainly did seem very nice."

"Yeah, they did." Grace crossed to her white Victorian vanity to get a nail polish. "They'll be nice. Quit flipping. Is nail polish on the list of banned items on the dress code?"

"As long as it's nude or pale it's okay." Jules lifted an eyelid and peered forward to check her eyebrows. "It'll be different, of course."

"Yeah—Hilliard we had over 600 in our class. There's only about eighty here. That's downright tiny."

"Well, yeah—and it will be different since we're the new kids. We've never been the new kids before."

"I'm sure we'll have people other than each other to sit with at lunch, if you're worried about that."

Jules stared at the Renoir above the desk; it was too misty and blurry and pastelly for her, but it was one of her sister's favorites. (Jules preferred Van Gogh.) "Yeah, I agree with you there. But I'm not worried. I think we'll be fine. The only thing that sucks is that we can't be the things we were going to be at Hilliard."

Grace's brow furrowed, "What do you mean?"

"Like, I was going to edit the yearbook. You were going to be the featured artist in that exhibition at the Monaco and the captain of the tennis team and everything. Now we've got to restart. And, we won't be invited to the class reunions at Hilliard and those are the people we've known since before kindergarten. Those are the ones I might have cared how they turned out."

Grace lazily raised an eyebrow. "Jules, you've said a million times how you're only going back to reunions to brag and how irritating high school can be."

"Well, yeah. I thought it was hard last year. It's just so little—and small-minded. It's almost easier to go into this one open-minded. I don't care what they think of me. I mean, look at it. We've got more important things happening this year."

"I wish you wouldn't phrase it like that." Grace said, after a beat. She carefully rearranged her perfume bottles and blush brushes.

"Sorry." Jules said after a pause. "Which uniform are you wearing tomorrow?"

"I don't know. I can't believe they expect long-sleeved uniforms in August in Vegas. I'm more after a tank top and jeans."

"Yeah—well. I think I'm going to wear the wraparound skirt and the Oxford shirt. I think I might pretend I live in Newport and tie the sweater around my shoulders."

"I was thinking the pleated with the blazer. Might as well deck out for the first day."

"Yeah. I think we'll be okay, don't you?" Jules bit her nail.

Her twin looked exasperated. "Yeah. We'll be fine. What time does Jessie get here tomorrow morning?"

"About ten, I think. We're already at school." Jules flopped down backwards onto Grace's bed. "Did they start school back at Hilliard already?"

Her sister flopped down next to her, hands folded over her abdomen. "Yeah. They started Wednesday. We always started Wednesday, remember?"

"Did you talk to Jonathon about it?" She knew that her sister and her ex-boyfriend had been drifting a little, despite all efforts to remain close. She was unsure how to address it—she'd never had a boyfriend. She'd figured it was because she was more aggressive and very loud and intimidating around others, and yet very timid about breaking away from her mold and letting any other side of her show. She liked people to come to her and didn't like to make herself known to guys. And, if she was interested in a guy, her analytic-ness usually talked her out of it before anything could happen. Grace was much more laid-back and open to anything, though she wasn't nearly as high-profile since she didn't care about joining everything and being in charge of everything and being impressive. She just was impressive naturally. Grace never made anything out to be a bigger deal than it actually was; she just did what she needed to do with a cool, calm exterior. Jules did care about others' thoughts, a lot. Also, Grace was the prettier twin, though Jules knew that she wasn't unattractive.

Grace pulled a face. "Nah. We've just been emailing. Caroline told me he was sort of seeing this junior, Annabeth."

"Grace?" Jules rolled her head so she could see her sister's profile.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it's weird—how in about two weeks we've managed to pretty much pull completely out of their lives?"

"You honestly think it's only been these past two weeks? Just having Mom get sick pulled us away from them." Grace swallowed as Jules started to cry softly. "Mom getting sick made us not normal. Leaving was almost a blessing. It's a cleaner delineation from everybody else. It will let us feel separated without feeling guilty for not fulfilling our obligations. It's just sort of a suspended year before college. And besides," she added hastily after seeing her sister's face, "It's not like we're _totally_ out of their lives. I'm sure whenever we go back we can call them up to catch up, and we'll still email. I mean, you email Liz and Courtney pretty often, even if it's just to say 'hi' and it's not like we're not all going to separate colleges next year, and then they'll all drift, too."

"It's still weird," Jules insisted. She sniffled hard before continuing, "I mean, where do we call home come next year—here, where we graduated high school, or in California, where we spent our whole lives? And the rest of them will be coming home to familiar places for things like Homecoming and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Where will we go? We live in a place we don't call home. At Thanksgivings, and family things—we won't have any of those for the rest of our adult lives? All those things like family weddings and big Christmas celebrations and everything—we won't have those."

"Jules! Knock it off! Life in California was not perfect. And we never had any of those things. It was always you, me, and Mom. I mean, we sometimes had the uncles and grandma and grandpa—but hardly ever. When was the last time we saw Uncle Dan and his kids? About four years ago. Uncle Doug—we saw him at Christmas our freshman year. Life wasn't perfect, or even great most of the time. It was just ordinary. And, calling places home? We weren't going to come back for things like Homecoming anyways. You want to go to the University of Pennsylvania or Columbia, and I'll be somewhere like Duke or Cornell if I'm lucky. We weren't going to come back. And we'd always talked about doing internships in the summer and being grown ups. This year's already going to be so sucky—don't make it worse by kvetching about how _perfect_ life used to be."

"We still had Mom, though." Jules whispered. Her sister didn't answer her.

Sara knocked on the door before popping her head in. "Hey. It's about dinner time—what would you guys like?"

They looked at each other. "Let's try Chinese takeout tonight. I'm feeling like steamed veggies and rice. Can we get crab rangoons too? Or egg rolls?" Grace finally said.

"Kay—one of each." Sara said. "We've got to do some cleaning later tonight. Do you guys have everything you need for school, by the way?"

"Yeah." Jules said. "We'll help with cleaning. And I'd like spicy orange chicken with rice."

"Great. I'd really like the house to look nice for Jessie. There're still some boxes of stuff from your living room in the family room, too. Look through them, please."

"Got it." They girls smiled bravely, and Sara decided not to ask them what they'd been talking about.


	17. 17

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

I'm back from my vacation(I loooove summer) and couldn't wait to get this next chapter posted. Hopefully, I'll have everything posted by the time school starts again in 2 weeks. (I feel so juvenile discussing high school starting) I'm already planning a sequel to this. Please hang in there and keep reading and reviewing!

* * *

Sara's friend Miranda had once remarked "shit travels in cycles." It was true, in Sara's opinion: her beliefs about bad days could be summed up by Miranda's statement. There were weeks with horrible, gruesome cases, and then those weeks where Sara actually left the lab before shift ended because she was bored. There were weeks where drama just appeared, manifesting itself comfortably in her existence, and then months where her life was so boring and mundane her cat would be moved to tears—if she even had a cat. (Weeks like those, she actually considered it.)

The week that the girls started school was possibly the busiest week of her life, and one of the most complicated. The girls started school and tentatively seemed to enjoy it. Their days got busier, as they spent mornings at club meetings or the gym 'training,' their afternoons at their respective sport practices, and their evenings howling about calculus. Lilly's nurse Jessie moved in—she was a tall, broad, rough-but-motherly type who guarded her patient fiercely but never succumbed to sentimentality or babying Lilly. She had a chillingly realistic outlook: Yes, Lilly would die. Yes, it would be soon. But, dammit, she was going to go comfortable and loved.

Jessie and Dr. Ringo both recommended that, though it was quite late, Lilly should undergo an operation to numb the nerves around her kidneys and pancreas. The tumors, they discovered, had metasized and spread to her bones and lungs. Nobody needed to say that it wouldn't be long until the funeral.

Lilly, however, refused to become negative. She could not swallow anymore, had to be fed by somebody most of the time and could hardly walk or even move some mornings. Because the cancer was located in her gastrointestinal system, she had trouble taking pain medication orally, so Jessie would often inject it or use IVs. She spent most of her time writing down quick memories for the girls and was adamant about staying at home until the very last possible moment.

At work, they all continued to slug away on the Skylar Westborough case. It finally cracked, a bit anticlimactically, after Skylar's mother talked to Nate, on Wednesday night. The teenagers had clumsily tried to play sex games: they snuck into the pool area and Nate tied Skylar to a ladder in the shallow end, and then duct-taped a sock into her mouth. "We're both people that like to go to the limit—we'd been trying to outdo each other with the kinkiness since we'd started sleeping together." He'd explained clumsily. "I guess it got a little too rough. We were both really drunk." After realizing that Skylar had died, he'd undone the duct tape and the sock and untied her, and fled. Sara, after hearing the story, had gone to a bar and sobbed into Greg's shirt until somebody found Nick, and then she sobbed into his shirt.

Thursday night was her first date with Nick, a no-strings-attached pizza and a movie. Afterwards, they made out on his couch. She hated herself for being attracted to him and acting on it, because it just seemed to complicate everything tenfold. Still—she hated herself even more for admitting it—she couldn't stop herself. When she was with him, it seemed righter than anything else in her life. The regrets only came afterwards.

One movie turned into Rollerblading at a park, then into more movie nights, then into Nick cooking dinner for her. She picked out some things, too—seeing the Blue Man Group show at the Luxor and finding out-of-the-way restaurants to eat at. She looked forward to any evening with Nick. He relaxed her without making her totally forget about—and thus feel guilty about—the girls and Lilly. He came over several times too, just to hang out, and the girls adored him. Warrick and Greg also made it a point to stop by several times to see the girls. She wasn't sure it was a good idea for Nick to come over so often and for the girls to get used to him, because they technically weren't dating and she didn't want anything to go wrong in the future and throw the girls more off course. Sara knew he thought she was nuts when she explained it to him, but said that if Sara thought it was best for the girls then he would go along with it.

One morning, Sara got off work and was pleasantly surprised to find Nick outside. It was ridiculous and against all of her instincts, but she was immediately happier after seeing him. "I was thinking pancakes and a movie." He grinned boyishly and kissed her.

"God, we sure turn date night upside down." She intertwined her fingers with his. "How was your shift?"

He shrugged. "Boring. I have tonight off."

"Isn't that great? I've got tonight off, too."

"Should be interesting, then." Nick opened the door for her.

She called the girls, making sure they got to school and Lilly was fine, and then spent an hour at the IHOP before going over to Nick's place. "What'd you rent?" It had been his turn to pick movies.

He grinned. "_Million Dollar Baby _and _Spider-Man 2._"

Sara grinned back, only wider. "I've been _wanting _to see that."

"I know." He smiled. They sat down comfortably to watch the movies, Sara's legs thrown over Nick's lap. He absentmindedly massaged her calves throughout the movies. He knew better than to talk to her during movies. "How'd you like them?" he turned to her and she began kissing his jawline as soon as the credits from _Spider-Man 2_ rolled.

"I loved them. Which one was your favorite?" she said in a half-husky voice.

"Definitely _Spider-Man 2_." He said, reciprocating her soft kisses. He searched her face for her mouth.

"Figures," she smiled, their lips pressed together.

Twenty minutes later, as his hand snaked up her shirt, Nick began to think that this was a bad idea. However, as Sara's fingers were fumbling with his zipper, he nixed that thought. Five minutes later though, as they stumbled towards his bedroom, he decided it was a good idea to pull back. The last thing he wanted was a guilty, regretful Sara to wake up next to.

"Sar…Wait." He wriggled loose and sat on his bed, hands on her hips. "Do you really want to do this? Less than three weeks ago, you didn't even want a relationship because things are so complicated. This is the last thing I want to mess up right now."

Sara smiled tenderly and sadly. "You're right. Everything is complicated right now. Every-damn-thing—except this. This, Nick," she sat down too, a knee in between his thighs, and put her hand over his heart. "This feels right. And good, and everything else." She tilted her head downwards and kissed him long, hard, and slow. "There's nothing that I want more right now."

Nick didn't need anything else; he attacked her with a raw passion Sara had never seen before. Cupping his cheeks in her hands, she deftly flipped them backwards and sideways onto the bed.

Several hours later, after what was definitely the best sex of her life, Sara was lazily rubbing her leg against Nick's when she heard the whine of her cell phone. Jumping out of bed, she grabbed it and was immediately worried when she saw both the time—4:32—and the ID—_Grace_. "Yeah?" she said, flipping it open.

"Sara?" the normally calm, stoic voice was close to tears. "Sara—they want to put Mom into the Hospice for good. Please—come home."


	18. 18

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

I FINISHED! I'm now going to post a chapter every other day, if possible. I have a family reunion this weekend, though. (Blech.) There are four more chapters, if my counting abilities haven't completely left me. Thank you all for reading and reviewing! It means a ton to me to get so much positive feedback!

* * *

"Sweets, I _don't care_. No matter how sick I am, you are not slacking off and skipping school and sports practices _less than three weeks_ into the school year! I've talked to the administration and your teachers—remember? And Meredith's talking to them now. You will go on, sweets—school is too important."

"It's not more important than you!" Jules cried dramatically. "Why don't you get that, Mom?"

Sara slipped in quietly and hoped nobody would notice her rumpled appearance and day-old clothes. Appraising the current argument, she doubted they would.

Lilly, sitting in her armchair, was paper-faced and resolute; Sara had never heard her yell like that at the girls. Jules had thrown herself down on the couch and was sobbing; Grace huddled in an armchair near the coffee table, her head in her arms. Jessie was standing tentatively on the side, her usual self-assuredness completely gone. "Afternoon, Sara." Lilly said, eyebrows raised, before turning back to face her daughters. "Now, I'm sorry, but there's nothing you're going to be able to do at the Hospice most of the time. It's just a lot of waiting, and it's not a healthy environment. Maybe—when it gets closer—" Lilly choked a little before continuing, "then you can come all day, if you want. But school will be a good outlet, and you're not going to just unequivocally make a blanket statement about how you're _not_ going to school for several days. I am still your mother, dammit, you are _not_ an adult." She practically yelled the last part after Jules opened her mouth to protest. Instead, she recollapsed into sobs. "God, Jules, I didn't mean to put it that way," Lilly sighed, close to tears herself.

Sara edged closer to Jessie. "When did all this happen?" she whispered.

"Dr. Ringo suggested it this morning. It's all going downhill from here, and quickly. He sort of ganged up on her—knew she'd be difficult to talk into it. He got the administrator, and Meredith, Margaret, and Sarah to all sit down and discuss it with her. They've got a room set up. She's asked me to pack."

"So—she's leaving? She's just leaving?" Sara whispered.

"Well, yeah. That's how it works." Jessie explained. "She's checking in tomorrow morning. She mentioned you had tonight off?"

"Yeah. I better call Grissom." Sara fumbled for her cell phone. "I'd better just take some indefinite leave."

"You might want to talk to Lilly first." Jessie tilted her chin in that direction. "Jules just tried to pull that."

Sara looked forward, to where all three women were sobbing quietly to themselves. Sara wondered where the hell their wonderful solidarity was. "What do you think, Sara?" Jules said plaintively.

"Excuse me?" Sara said.

"About us being allowed to do our work from the Hospice."

Sara looked down and studied her toenail polish. "Jules, I think this is one for your mother to answer. I'm standing by her decision. I think it's the right one."

Jules let out a twisted, anguished noise that was halfway between a scream and a cry—"Don't you get it? I want to be there!" Her eyes flashed to her sister, "Come on, Gracie. You can't tell me you want to be in school."

"Of course I don't." Grace practically hissed. "But if it's what Mom wants—"

"Mom!" Jules said plaintively. "You can't do this."

"Sweets, I'm sorry. I know it's the best decision. And it's the one I'm sticking to. And this talk is seriously done." She turned calmly to Jessie. "Jessie, would you mind helping me pack? Sara, could you please help also. You two should try to relax and maybe talk a little bit. I promise that we'll talk later, alright?" The girls merely nodded. Jessie and Sara helped Lilly into her room. Lilly had obviously started packing; most of her clothing was already in suitcases. "Only the personal things left," she said in a grim, but satisfied, tone. "Good thing I didn't bring much stuff for the bedroom to start with."

"Lilly," Sara started, then stopped.

"Yeah?"

"I think—and I know that you just yelled at Jules for this—that I should take time off indefinitely. Before you start," she said quickly, as Lilly opened her mouth, "I work at night, so it's not the same thing—I'd be sleeping when you might need me to talk with doctors or something. You did give me the Healthcare Power of Attorney, and there's probably going to be some decisions to make. I'd be more available for the girls. Also, I have over five months of time off saved up. It's rollover, and I just didn't take it very often."

"You're not my daughter." Lilly said simply. "It's entirely your decision."

"Well, I'm doing it." Sara knew she sounded uncertain, as if she was going against a superior's wishes.

"Thank you," Lilly said in a low voice. "I really appreciate everything you've done. It's way more than I expected."

A rush of tears flooded Sara's eyes, and she sniffled quickly to hold them back. "Thank you, Lilly."

Sara silently helped pack for the next several minutes, then called Grissom and briefly explained the situation. "If you can come in, come in," he said. "We'll make do between the three of us left. And, keep us updated, hon, okay?"

"Yeah, sure." She said bleakly, hanging up to call Nick.

He was instantly supportive. "What do you need me to do, Sar?"

"I don't know." She said. "All I know—" she looked around to make sure the girls were still upstairs. "That last night was amazing. And I won't forget it. I just need—space. I need to concentrate on other things for the next few weeks."

She could hear him nod. "Of course. Listen, do you want me to bring my truck around tomorrow morning to help move Lilly into the Hospice?"

"That would be nice." She said. "Is nine too early?"

"No. I'll see you then."

"Thank you, Nicky." She said, before hanging up. Walking back into Lilly's room, she announced, "Nick will help us move tomorrow."

"Did you sleep with him?" Lilly questioned. Sara just nodded and looked down. "He's a good man, Sara, but you don't need anyone's approval."

"Thank you, anyways," Sara murmured.

The rest of the evening passed in a blurry haze. The girls eventually came out to help pack, Jules silently obeying her mother's wishes. Food from Jack in the Box was finally ordered around eight o'clock, and then Lilly forced the girls to go do their homework. After they left, she turned to Sara and said, without looking her in the eyes, "I'm not taking the desk—it's too big. The letters are still in the drawer. Please sell this furniture, afterwards—or donate it, whatever. Please move on with your life." She turned away, and Sara could see the light glimmering on her tears.


	19. 19

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Only a few more chapters to go! Please keep reading this! I'm so excited to **finish **a multiple-chapter story that I couldn't wait to post this! The next chapter will hopefully be up Sunday evening/Monday morning. -Lyssa

* * *

The next days and weeks tumbled in a mad, quick fury. Every assumption Sara had made about death from cancer seemed to be refuted. The doctors did not spend every minute shouting and cajoling and making the patient stay alive; instead, nurses quietly tended to Lilly and made sure that she was comfortable. Lilly's spirit, which had once seemed so indomitable and kick-ass, was one of quiet, passive submission to fate. Doctors came in twice a day, sometimes three times, to check 'vitals' and occasionally up medication. On her first day living at Grace House, Lilly had a stent placed in her bile duct, and was put on dialysis every other day. She became increasingly unresponsive and weak. Sarah and Jessie, the nurses, explained to Sara how she was under a great deal of pain medication and wouldn't be fully cognizant again. It was slow, sometimes maddeningly so, and often routine—medicine, sleep, a little talk. Lilly didn't have much to say, and was often pensive and drawn when the girls were at school. She often wrote things down for the girls or Sara, or gave Sara instructions like, "Remember to get senior pictures taken by November." "I promised them when they were eleven I'd take them to Europe the summer after their senior year, if you can please swing that." "Jules likes Kiwi Strawberry Propel water at every swim meet this winter—don't ever forget that. She's very superstitious. Grace will prefer the Berry or Melon for tennis this spring but she doesn't care much." "Talk to their guidance counselor and make sure to have them finish _everything_ for college applications. Force them to apply to any school they think they might go to." She always sounded incredibly sad and worried whenever she made these pronouncements, which usually came at random times.

Sara hung around Grace House all day, finding crossword puzzles and _Jeopardy!_ reruns for Lilly whenever she was awake. Sara got used to schlumping around in sweatshirts, henley tees, and unwashed jeans. The place didn't have any food, though there were fast food restaurants nearby, but Sara rarely felt like leaving during the day. Grace and Jules fell into a routine of bringing her Fazoli's with extra breadsticks every time they came.

Grace and Jules had an exhausting schedule. They spent all the required time at school and sports practices before coming to Grace House and spending the whole evening and most of the night there. Unfortunately, Lilly was rarely awake and able to carry on a conversation at that time of night. During her better hours, Sara often tried to convince her to let the girls skip practice or calculus a few times a week to come in. Though her body had lost nearly thirty pounds, she vomited everything she ate, and _knew_ she only had a few weeks left, Lilly was still adamant that they not only attend everything but also perform very well. "This is their future. Eventually they'll know I'm right." Sara really doubted it—hell, even Margaret doubted it—but they abided by Lilly's wishes.

Saturdays eventually came around, and the girls and Sara spent the whole day there. The girls insisted on bringing a bunch of older, classic movies Sara had never seen but both the girls and Lilly seemed to enjoy—_Breakfast at Tiffany's, Casablanca, His Girl Friday, Sabrina, Rear Window, The Philadelphia Story, _and _An Affair to Remember_. Sara sat quietly, bored by most of the movies, but Lilly, Grace, and Jules, cramped on the narrow bed, spent the entire day laughing and crying and yelling at the characters.

Nick tentatively asked a few times if he should stop by, but Sara quietly told him no. Instead, they met for a few quick, distracted breakfasts at diners. He kept her updated on office gossip and tried to get her to laugh. He gave her burned CDs to take back to the girls.

One Monday morning, Sara smiled bravely at the receptionist at Grace House. The receptionist gave her the same sad, almost pity-filled smile she always gave her. As Sara rounded the corner into the quiet corridor where Lilly's room was located, Dr. Ringo said softly, "Sara." She turned and was slightly startled to see him there. He had his offices in a nearby hospital; he rarely came over to Grace House.

"Good morning, Dr. Ringo." She fixed a smile onto her face. It felt foreign.

"Sara—" he said again before hesitating. "I've talked with Jessie and Sarah, and the others on the nursing staff and those who attend to Ms. Lowry, such as Dr. Foster—Margaret, whatever—and Meredith Gideon. We've all decided—though Lilly seems to insist that the girls stay in school—that it would be a good idea to give them the option of spending the whole day, besides some breaks to get fresh air and a fresh perspective, starting tomorrow. It's unhealthy to spend all day here—but there's a good chance she'll slip into a coma soon."

Sara felt as if she'd been slapped. "And then it's—over?"

He nodded solemnly. "Yes. She's in a great deal of pain now—the cancer's completely destroyed most of the liver and pancreas. You've seen her—her color is extremely poor. Her liver is almost completely shut down." Sara nodded, her face slack and numb. With a bit more compassion than she expected, he continued, "Listen—I'll tell the girls when they get here. Cassandra will alert me, so I'll know when they get in the building. They usually arrive—around six, or so, right?"

"What? Yeah." Sara nodded vigorously. "Yeah. They'll be here about sixish."

"You should probably take a walk or something." The doctor said kindly. The kindness from the condescending hack made the news doubly harder to take.

Sara walked quickly and jerkily outdoors, her allergies beginning to flare up. Her nose started twitching and her eyes started watering. Her breathing became heavier and erratic. She found herself at her car and got in, intending to drive to a mall to find a nice black dress or pantsuit or something—it seemed inappropriate to wear a used outfit, just as it seemed inappropriate to use the outfit for anything else after—well, after. She was able to drive about six blocks before she pulled over and sobbed for twenty minutes.

After that crying binge, she dabbed at her eyes, careful to avoid her eyelashes, before she remembered she wasn't wearing any mascara. She drove on to the nearest mall that wasn't a strip mall. It definitely wasn't the biggest in Vegas, but it was two stories and air-conditioned and worked. She parked far enough away that she could get exercise on the hike in. After she found her way into Neiman Marcus, she stood in the dress section and turned around, blinking as if the light was unwelcome to her eyes, several times before a tiny, round saleslady with a kind voice and heavily hairsprayed coif sought her out.

"Can I help you, Miss?"

Sara jumped and blinked at that voice. "Yes." She said, trying to sound businesslike and coming off dazed. "Yes. I need a black dress. Or pantsuit. Whatever it is, it has to be black."

"Oh," she said in a knowing tone. "Fancy party at the office? Or perhaps the husband's?"

Sara instantly decided this woman was extremely dumb. "No, actually. I have a funeral."

"Oh." She sounded struck, but quickly recovered and pulled a face. "Well. Yes. Right this way." Sara followed her blindly. "Someone close, I presume?"

"Yes." Sara said thickly. "My cousin. She's been living with me for the past few weeks. Cancer."

"That's horrible." The woman fingered a dress and sounded as if Sara had just announced something obvious, like it was Monday. "What from?"

"Cancer. She's—she's not gone yet. But soon."

"I am so sorry." She pulled a dress from the rack, "What size? I think this will suit your height."

"Two, please."

"Goodness, you're quite thin." The woman didn't intend for it to be a compliment or an insult, merely an observation. She handed Sara the dress. "Try this on." It was a lovely, A-line quilted dress without sleeves, and a plunging V in both the front and the back. "It's simple and elegant. Very Jackie-in-the-White-House. You have hints of her style."

Sara threw it on quickly. It was stunning on her, but she barely looked in the mirror. "Yes. This will work. Thank you." She headed for the cashier's, paid, and left.

Instead of heading back to Grace House, as she intended, Sara impulsively turned towards the girls' school. It was in a quiet, new, residential area of Henderson—a small, brick, neatly trim two-story that was quite inconspicuous. A small sign outside identified it. Sara stalled and parked, heading in. She followed the signs to the main office, barely remembering being there before. "Yes. Hello." She replied to the secretary's crisp welcome. "I'd like to pull Jules Lowry and Grace Lowry out of school."

"You'll have to head for the attendance office, right next door. Are you family? You must be family, if they're under eighteen. I believe they are."

An unexpected lump formed in Sara's throat. "Yes. Yes, they are."

The secretary smiled and nodded, unsure of how to assess the situation. "Right then. Next door." She waved with her wrist before turning back to her work.

Sara walked into the second, smaller office. "Hi." She said to the larger, less-friendly secretary. "My name's Sara Sidle. I'd like to call Grace Lowry and Julia Lowry out of class for the rest of the day."

Though the secretary looked intimidating, she was obviously very in-tuned. "They're the transfers whose mother is dying. Is everything alright?" she said concernedly.

"Yes. No. Not really. It's a fluid situation. I'm their cousin. I'm on the contact sheet and I'd like to take them out." Sara spoke slowly, confusedly, as if she was processing everything from underneath water.

"Of course." She said sympathetically, almost patronizingly, and pressed the correct buttons before saying, "Madame Bround? Could you send Grace Lowry to the attendance office with her things?…Great…Thank you." She turned to Sara. "Grace is coming from French class right now. I'll call Julia." Sara nodded and the woman dialed again, "Mrs. Patton? Please send Jules Lowry to the attendance office. Her cousin would like to speak with her…Thank you…Have a nice morning."

The girls arrived within milliseconds of each other; Grace was worried, Jules was panicked. "Sara? Is Mom…" Jules's voice trailed off.

"She's about how she is last time you saw her." Sara assured her before turning to the secretary, who handed her the requisite forms. "I just… Let's go." Both girls looked shocked and scared at Sara's behavior.

"Why did you pull us out?" Grace said, her voice carefully tempered. "I mean, you did just say everything was alright."

Sara whipped around, thankful that her sunglasses allowed her some protection from their emotions, so that she could speak freely. "Your mother is still alive, yes, but—it won't be long, according to Dr. Ringo. I just wanted to, you know, pull you out."

Grace looked at her skeptically. "You just wanted to pull us out?"

"Yeah." Sara saw a Starbuck's nestled in the corner of a strip mall and pulled to the side. "Let's stop here, get some coffees or something, before heading back to Grace House."

"You sure Mom's not dead?" Jules tried for jocular and landed at honest.

"Yes." Sara said, stepping into the line. "What do you girls drink?"

Jules ordered a mint mocha, and Grace got a vanilla hazelnut latte. Sara quickly ordered a caramel macchiato and guided the girls to a seat. "Seriously, now." Jules said. "Don't keep—taunting us. You're acting funny. Something's wrong. What's up?"

Sara stared quietly at her macchiato. "Dr. Ringo found me this morning—his recommendation is that you start spending your days at Grace House. He thinks she'll slip into a coma soon."

Grace pressed her fist to her mouth as if she was going to be sick, but Jules—melodramatic Jules—simply fingered the rim of her mocha and sighed sadly. "What did she say?"

Sara struggled for a minute. "I don't know if he told her. Would you want to know?"

"Yes." Jules said simply. "Yeah, I would."

Sara swallowed. "I'm not sure. Let's—let's just get back there. Figure out what to do."

They silently stood up, tossed their cups, and walked out to the car. The ride to Grace House was mostly silent, a burned CD from Nick providing the only music. Suddenly, though, the song changed, to "You've Got a Friend in Me" from _Toy Story_ and Grace inexplicably started to cry, "This was—is—one of Mom's favorite songs," she sniffled. "Don't you think it describes her perfectly? At least, it does to me." She sniffled again, "It's just sad."

"Everything is sad here," Sara said quietly, and both girls began to sob. Sara held it together and drove on to Grace House.

The girls pulled themselves together, and they walked in silently. After finding their way to Lilly's room, they were shocked when she rolled over and smiled at them when they walked in. "Hey, girls." She said softly.

"Hi, Mom. How are you?" Jules sat down next to her mother.

"I'm good." Lilly turned upwards towards them and said simply, "It's only eleven AM."

"Yeah—I pulled them out of school, Lilly. I just thought that they—"

Lilly lifted a bony hand. "Dr. Ringo, Margaret, and Meredith talked to me this morning." She said. "It's alright with me. Honestly." She sounded quite tired. "I'd rather have you here."

"Oh, Mom." Grace sighed, and curled on to the bed. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry, girls. I hope you know that." Lilly mumbled.

"Oh, Mom. Don't be." Jules breathed heavily, holding back the tears. Sara leaned in the doorway, feeling like an intruder. "We're going to be okay, you know."

"Yeah, you did great." Grace stroked her mother's arm. "We're going to work out right. Please don't worry. Everything will be okay."

The end came quickly. The girls stayed the whole of that night in Lilly's room, and Lilly inconspicuously slipped into unconsciousness at about three AM. Medications were adjusted; nurses quietly handled the grim prognosis. Sara went to the house and packed a bag for each of the three of them with supplies for the next few days. The girls were surprisingly calm, which Sara attributed to a blend of stoicism, their mother's strength, and utter numbness.

Tuesday and Wednesday passed in a quiet, pregnant haze; the girls held their mother's hands, arranged her pillows, and called their grandparents. Sara even spoke to Nathan for a few minutes; he and Maggie weren't able to make the trip out to Las Vegas but would be there, "when it's needed."

Thursday came with a foreboding, dark aura surrounding it. Lilly's vitals were down, and they weren't going to try to get them back up. Still, she struggled through the day. Jessie told the girls to leave for lunch, but they refused on the grounds of the "bathroom rule": whenever you ate in a restaurant, and were impatient for the food, you finally went pee and then the food came when you were in the bathroom. The same principle apparently applied to their mother's death—if you left the inevitable happened.

Sara found this rule ridiculous; to prove it to the girls she went on a quick walk about four in the afternoon. Instead the girls proved her right.

As she rounded the corner on the way back to the room, Sara saw Jules and Grace sitting quietly in plastic chairs outside the Hospice room. "Told you the bathroom rule applies." Jules said, looking up at her with tears in her eyes. "She went about—" she looked up at the clock, "eight minutes ago."

"We were holding her in our arms." Grace said. She was folded together very tightly, holding everything in. Suddenly, her face started twitching and she started crying. She grabbed Jules's arm. Jules collapsed over her sister, grasping at her back and sobbing until she gasped.

Sara rushed over to the girls, herself starting to cry. "Oh, girls. Oh, girls." A sobbing Grace pulled her into the hug. "Oh, girls. Oh, God." Sara cried uncontrollably—for herself, for the girls, and for Lilly.


	20. 20

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Two chapters and counting down! Thank you all so much for your kind reviews!

* * *

Planning a funeral was actually a much more organized, boring activity than Sara would have suspected. There was paperwork at the hospital, and a teary-eyed Meredith gave Sara and the girls Lilly's instructions for her burial: cremation in Vegas, a ceremony in her old town, then a private burial back near her childhood home. She had given specifics on Bible verses, had asked that "Turn, Turn, Turn" be played at the service, and left the numbers for the funeral parlor, florist, pastor, and newspaper back in California. Sara started to cry at Lilly's thoughtfulness and thoroughness.

There were lots of phone calls to make—Jules and Grace spent half an hour on the phone with Nathan and Maggie, who promised to call Doug and Dan. Sara spent a bleak ten minutes on the phone with Grissom before calling Nick. He came over and held her for a very long time as she cried. She insisted that he stay in Las Vegas, that she would be all right during the funeral preparations and everything. He reluctantly abided her wishes. She then helped Jules and Grace call everyone in California who might make the drive down, and they spent three hours on the phone to the funeral parlor arranging…everything. Meredith spent the entire day by their side, making sure everything was accomplished. She helped them figure out the legal and financial things, called the lawyer and the bank and school and everyone. She promised to help them in the coming weeks, to help Sara remember the millions of details about the girls' lives and delicate psyches.

That was their Friday. The cremation was to take place Friday night. The girls refused to see their mother one last time in the morgue before it, so Sara went down alone. The hospital's assistant coroner pulled out the body and nodded curtly at Sara before walking away.

Sara stared at the lifeless, tiny figure. It was so unlike the Lilly in the girls' pictures, the Lilly in Sara's memories. That one was laughing, and alive. This one was shriveled-up form of a body that had been dead long before the soul left. She pressed her finger into the hard, rubbery arm, and trailed the same finger down to the hand. "Oh, Lilly," she said, sighing and sliding down the metal doors hiding the bodies. "Oh, God. I made you a promise—I'm going to keep it, to you and to Grace and Jules. They're such wonderful women. I love them." She said softly. "But I loved you, too. And—what do I do next? How do I keep you alive for the girls, but help them to move on? It's taken me so long, so many years of therapy to get over my shitty childhood. How do I make sure this one shitty year doesn't spiral them into anything besides this grief counseling? How do I be there for them without taking over your place and making them mad? I don't know what to say to them—well, yes, for these few days I do—but after that, what do I say to them? What do we talk about? I don't even know what exact day their birthday is on—how do I keep them attached to the rest of their lives? It's like they just restarted everything at eighteen. They need you, Lilly. They needed you so much. I do, too." She sat there and sobbed for a good half hour.

They decided to have the funeral next Saturday morning, a visitation the Friday before. The actual inurnment would be Saturday evening, hopefully as the sun was setting. It was a while to wait, according to Meredith, but the girls felt it was the only way that all of their mother's friends and coworkers could attend. They decided to stay in Vegas until Tuesday and fly out to California then.

They were very quiet for the first several days, interrupting the quiet only with crying jags and harsh, hollow laughter at some memory or another. The organizational aspect of the funeral consumed them all, and allowed the girls to somewhat repress their grief. For this Sara was grateful since everyone had something to focus her energy on. It also showed both girls that life went on: there were plane tickets to buy, eyebrows to get waxed, dresses to purchase, phone calls to make, papers to sort. Flowers began being FTDed to the house immediately, and gifts and checks were sent. The school thoughtfully sent both girls a necklace with a St. Christopher charm and a kind note. "Figures." Jules said dryly. "He is, after all, the patron saint of those who are on journeys."

The girls went to the basement Sunday and went through her million boxes, finding all sort of useless, meaningful treasures, like seventh grade basketball team pictures and hand-traced turkeys from fifteen years ago. Sara remembered the letters in the desk only after Meredith brought by the papers Lilly had written during the hospital during her last few weeks. There were over one hundred scribbled with notes and remembrances.

Sara hesitantly opened the door that had been shut since Lilly went to Grace House permanently. She looked around, feeling like a teenager vandalizing a cemetery. Quickly crossing to Lilly's handsome desk, she opened the designated drawer. There was a folder on top; she opened that to see several sheets filled with Lilly's scrawl. The top one read "I first took you guys to Disneyland when you were four. Grace was scared of Space Mountain and Jules threw a temper tantrum when they were out of ketchup at the restaurant. It was really embarrassing, actually." Sara smiled, wiped her eyes, and set the folder aside.

Financial papers followed; those were set in a separate pile to review with the lawyers in California—she reminded herself that she needed to write down the meeting on Thursday somewhere or she'd forget about it. Finally, she saw the three while envelopes. Jules. Sara. Grace. She pulled them out, handling them with care. Grabbing the folder filled with memories, she walked downstairs. The girls were still sprawled, exhausted, between boxes, and tear tracks ran down their faces. "Hey, girls," Sara sat down cross-legged between the girls and slid the respective envelope to each of them. "These are—for you."

"Are these the letters Mom wrote us?" Grace quietly fingered it.

"Yeah. She kept them in her desk. I don't know when she wrote them—she had a set of letters when you moved in, but she might have rewritten them. And those are the memories she's been writing down for the past several weeks." The girls just nodded; Jules turned the envelope over several times. "Are you guys going to open yours now?"

"I don't think so. Not yet, anyways." Grace pocketed hers. Jules shook her head, too.

"Okay." Sara stood. "Well, I'm going to open mine upstairs. I'll see you guys later, okay? What would you like for dinner?"

"Whatever." Jules shrugged. Sara knew it was fruitless; they hadn't really eaten since lunch Thursday. She nodded and walked upstairs.

Flopping onto her bed, she hesitantly slid her thumb underneath the flap. She extracted the letter—three sheets of loose leaf folded over each other.

**_Dear Sara,_**

**_Letters from the grave are supposed to be filled with either sage wisdom or profound advice, and I have none of that to offer you. However, since memories are usually involved, I was able to come up with one._**

**_I remember the first day that I saw you after your mother was put into jail and my parents took you in. Dad had called me as soon as he found out (he knew that you really liked me) and so I came down from school. It was a very long drive, so by the time I got home, you were upstairs and asleep. I talked with my parents in hushed, awed tones; we couldn't believe the enormity and the sadness of this situation, specifically you. You were so young and vulnerable. We felt bad for Troy because he was already lost and we hadn't intervened, but we felt sorry for you because it was your life being turned absolutely upside down. We weren't quite sure what you would be acting like or what to do with you. It was scary. And sad, and uncertain. I'm guessing it's a lot of the emotions that you're feeling now._**

**_Anyways—back to the story. Around ten AM, you stumbled downstairs. You were a very gangly eight-year-old; I'm not sure you can remember how coltish your appearance was back then. You were tall and thin to the point of bony, with these long arms and legs and fingers and toes, and such small little shoulders and torso. Anyways. You walked into the kitchen—you'd made it downstairs quietly enough, I guess, or else we were very caught up in our conversation. Suddenly we turned, and you were in the doorway. You said, "May I have a breakfast, please, Aunt Maggie?" Mom was crying, not full-out subbing but there were tears running down her cheeks and she couldn't talk because she was going to sob, but she came over and she gave you a very tight hug. I think she said, "Anything you want, Sara darling," but I can't be sure. It could have been anything, really. You hugged her back, but the thing that got me—I hadn't seen you in a while—was the look in your eyes when I turned to look at you. There was fear there, yes, because your world had just been changed completely, and there was sadness, because your family had just been destroyed, and there was tiredness—it had been a very long night for you. But there was something else there, too. I can't really describe it on paper, and I probably couldn't elucidate it, but it was there. It was a mix of bravery, and strength, and courage, but there was a little bit of defiance there, too, like you were going to face whatever came your way and shot it down. It was just the most expressive look. Everything in your world was either destroyed or uncertain, but you were ready. You were going to fight it, and make it through, and do what was necessary._**

_**When I was first diagnosed, I was** scared**. So many things were uncertain—my future was the least of my concerns. The girls came first. And I knew, as the months dragged on and the treatments didn't take, that I needed to face the reality of it all. I knew that I wouldn't be around. I just ...accepted it (The girls still haven't.) And I knew I wanted them safe, and looked after, and taken care of. I knew that I needed someone strong, that a mother of one of their friends wouldn't be capable of growing enough to love two extra girls at the very last minute of their childhoods. I knew that I wanted someone who could handle grief- and angst-ridden teenaged girls, but one whom the girls could trust and respect. It's a weighty decision, choosing who will watch after you children for you. At first, I was too overwhelmed to make the decision. The obvious people—my family—were out. My brothers couldn't do it emotionally, my parents couldn't do it physically.**_

**_But, when I actually faced the reality and the enormity of my decision, there was one thing that was clear in my mind. It was the memory of an eight-year-old you, standing in the kitchen doorway, rumpled, dirty, tired, clutching a rag doll—do you still have that doll? You loved her—and with that look in your eyes. The look that said that yes, you might be daunted, and yes, it was a challenge, but you were going to face it and do your best. The look said you knew it probably wouldn't turn out perfectly—even at eight years old you knew better than to believe therapist bullshit and fairy tales—but the look said you would take it and try and do your best. I was on the phone with my father in five minutes, on the plane to Las Vegas that night._**

**_I admit, I don't know what has happened in your life since then. I don't know the things that have transpired or the person you have grown to be. But, from a distance, you are impressive. You've overcome great odds, though I know you are discouraged and pulled down easily. You might not even recognize it, but you continually pull yourself up, fix your mistakes, go on and sort your life out. It is a testament to your character that you've done this so many times._**

**_The coming weeks and months are tough and scary for me, and I can't pretend to know what they'll be like for you. But it takes great strength even to agree to this. You knew absolutely nothing about the girls, our lives, our values, or me until you took us in. You opened your home and expanded your heart for us. I know that this has been a growing, a learning experience for you—that much was painfully obvious. But I can't thank you enough for trying, and I know that you'll succeed. (Though I know that you doubt my words now.) The next year—hopefully, years—will be tough and trying and uncomfortable. There will be fights and tears and frustration at an all-time high, but I can already tell that there will, one day, hopefully not too far in the future, be love and laughter once more. I can't tell you how much it means to me that I know the girls will be okay, just by watching you all interact. It's scared and awkward, but I'm confident that you will be wonderful with them. (I can sort of tell that you're worried.) What you're doing is a great thing. Thank you so much for keeping my babies safe._**

**_My girls are special, but every mother, good and bad, says that. It hurts in so many places that I know I won't be there for them when they need me. Nothing will stop any of those hurts. But knowing that I left them with you, in your strong capable hands, certainly lessens them some. You are remarkable and you will always amaze me, you wonderful, defiant, honest woman._**

**_Lots of love and gratefulness—Lilly_**


	21. 21

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Well, this is the second to last chapter. Again, I'm amazed at how many people take time to review! Thank you all so much!

A quick note (honestly): No, I actually have never known someone to die of cancer. I've been quite lucky that all my loved ones are still around (of course, I'm only 17—ask in five years.) I've researched treatment, prognosis, and the basic course of the disease for background. However, writing the grief has not been difficult—Jules is basically based upon me, and Grace is a composite of my sister and my best friend, though both are slightly embellished and changed a little. My story "The Long Goodbye" is basically on permanent hiatus until I figure out what to do next with it. That one is much more personal; my grandfather suffers from the disease and I'm never sure how to approach the subject tastefully, as several fanfics involving Alzheimer's patients and care usually offend me and I'm not sure how to be neutral, factual, and compassionate at the same time.

Hope that counts as short! Please read and review!

* * *

"You ready, Grace?" Sara said tentatively, checking her purse one last time for the plane tickets.

"Yeah, one sec first." Grace zipped up her large suitcase and sighed. "Yeah. I think I'm ready."

Sara nodded back, fighting the impulse to hug her. "Good. Nick will be here in about five minutes to take us to McCarran. Do you need help carrying the suitcase downstairs?"

"I'm good." Grace yanked the navy blue suitcase off the bed and lugged it towards the door. She stopped for a second to check her appearance in the mirror. As always, she was chic in her own way: part hip and bohemian, part classic and feminine, always slightly eclectic. Today she wore a wrinkly, layered brown skirt from Fossil, a graphic-T from H&M, and a tailored jeans jacket from Express. She wore several long necklace strands from her various vintage shops, bracelets from Urban Outfitters, and a gold sequined sash from Forever 21 that she'd gleefully deemed, "a total find." Her makeup was, of course, flawless. Sara wasn't sure if she should be worried or impressed that Grace could care so much about her appearance at a time like this. "Is Jules ready?"

"Yeah, I am." Jules appeared behind Sara, awkwardly pulling along a suitcase that was identical to Grace's but in olive green. She, too, looked very put together: a beautiful, fitted shirt from Banana Republic, with butterfly-cap sleeves, a plunging v-neck, fitted seams throughout the chest area and filmy material across the abdomen, and another plunging-v in the back. She also wore her one pair of trendy designer jeans, from 7 For All Mankind, a chunky necklace, long, delicate dangle earrings, and gemmed-up flip-flops. Her hair and makeup was also neat and immaculate, but Sara was hopeful when she detected both weariness and fear in Jules' eyes. "Let's go."

They walked down the stairs slowly, each consumed by her private world. Sara's luggage was sitting by the door next to the garment bags carrying the new dresses everyone had purchased—Grace insisted that wearing anything that she'd worn before would make her throw up. They'd gone Monday morning; Jules found a dress at Anne Taylor Loft and Grace got one at her Old Faithful, Banana Republic.

Nick drove up a few seconds later in his Denali, helped them load the three suitcases. The girls settled into their seats silently. Nick made a few attempts at jocularity, but the girls were in their own upside-down worlds, too distracted and distraught to answer him. Sara was slightly relieved that they were still mourning.

Nick helped them inside and kissed Sara goodbye at the check-in counter. "Just call me whenever you need to." He said, nervously looking at her. "Just call, okay? No matter what time it is or anything."

"Nick, please don't worry." Sara's tone was a little more irritated than she would have liked. "I'll be fine."

"I know. But it will be sad, and stressful, and everything. Don't bottle things up."

"Please, Nick. Quit worrying. I'm not a teenager. They are." She looked at the girls.

"I never said you were." Nick sounded stung. "I just want to make sure you're alright."

"I'm not 'alright.' Define 'alright' please. I'm not whole, and it's difficult right now, and you knew both these things. But—don't do this. I'll get through it. Don't do this worrying, this watching over me crap."

"Okay, okay." He said. He wasn't sure what to say next—all he wanted to do was reassure her that he'd be there. "Anyways, I'll see you Monday. Your plane comes in at six, right?"

"Yes. I'll see you then." She kissed his check.

The flight to California was short, terse, and quiet. The girls listened to their iPods, Jules slept fitfully. They had a rental car lined up, and drove to the hotel and fell asleep.

They had plans the next day: the girls had to go to Hilliard and ask former teachers for college recs and see friends if they felt up to it. Sara had to go to the lawyer's, and then probably the bank and other offices. Maggie and Nathan were getting into town from Los Angeles later that afternoon; they were all going to eat dinner together. Dan was flying in Thursday evening and Doug was driving down. He was expected to arrive early Friday morning.

"Are you guys sure you can do this?" Sara asked hesitantly as she slid the rental car up to the large front steps to Hilliard High School. "Do you want me to come in?"

"We're good." Grace said. "We'll see you at three." She slid out of the backseat of the car.

"Don't worry, Sar. We'll find our friends, find the teachers—" her voice trailed off. "See you at three." She, too, disappeared.

"Yeah." Sara muttered to herself, looking worriedly over her shoulder as the girls walked into the building together.

She drove quickly to the lawyer's office, where her meeting was mostly her nodding and signing. The will was basic and straightforward, and Lilly had even added a clause insisting that Sara follow the will to the _t_ since she(Lilly) knew that Sara might have trouble swallowing some of Lilly's 'gifts.' Lilly had instructed that money from her life insurance policy and the sale of the Sacramento house be used to pay Sara's whole mortgage for the girls' senior year and half of her mortgage for the next four years, as the girls went through school. She gave Sara a few thousand dollars to 'treat herself,' gave Sara money to raise the girls—food, clothing, birthday presents, school fees— and left the rest of the money to the girls. Two trusts were set up combining their father's estate and Lilly's. Each girl received half, but the first 100,000 dollars were to be used for education. Half of the remaining money would be given to them on their twenty-fifth birthday, and the remaining balance was given to them on their thirtieth birthdays. The lawyer, an old friend of Lilly's who was already the executor of the estate, was put in charge of the trust. There was a short meeting with the banker, to clear up some definitions of tongue-twisting financialese.

Still, everything ended much more quickly than Sara would have expected. She had about two hours of free time, and spent it relaxing, driving around and stepping into small quaint stores. It made her remember how much she loved California, and then she decided to visit more often. It was probably a good idea now—with the girls, and everything. She briefly wondered if she should buy the girls some sort of gift. She nixed it quickly—it just sounded like a bad idea.

She parked outside Hilliard a little before three and waited until students poured out of the building. They came in ones and twos, and Sara quickly spotted the girls. They were standing about ten feet apart, obviously with different groups, and, when they saw Sara's car, quickly hugged several of them before heading over. Grace put her arm around Jules' hips, because Jules was crying a little bit. Grace had a bouquet of flowers in her hands.

"How'd it go?" Sara asked as the girls slid into the backseat.

"Pretty good." Jules said. "I got Mr. Peterson and Mrs. Montebello to agree to write my recs. Mr. Peterson taught AP Language and Composition last year, and was my English teacher in 10th grade, and Mrs. Montebello taught AP US History, AP Government, and AP Macroeconomics. And they loved me, which is always great." She smiled tentatively. "Plus, we got in to see our old guidance counselor, and she was really happy to see us. Didn't like the circumstances, though." Jules frowned and sighed and twisted her class ring.

"What about you, Grace?"

She smiled. "Mr. Huxley, who taught my AP Bio and my regular chem and anatomy, said that he would. He'll be really good at that, anyways. And then Ms. Kingsley, the art teacher, said she would write one. I would have had AP Studio Art with her this year. And Mrs. Inglewood agreed too, too—she was my French teacher for three years. And it was nice to see Ms. Tyler—the guidance counselor. She's called Mr. Bradley—new guidance counselor—like ten times, and Mr. Bradley thinks that including a counselor recommendation from her would be a good idea, too, for all the applications. She's been so helpful, considering." She rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I'm sorry—I can't just—I don't want to be thinking about college stuff right now. I still want to be concentrating on Mom." She didn't sound like she wanted comfort, or sympathy—she was just expressing fact.

Sara nodded slowly. "Did you get to see your friends?"

Jules nodded. "Liz, Courtney, and Melissa snuck out during lunch and we went to Quizno's."

Grace nodded, too. "Yeah, I saw those guys—they're always nice. And then Samantha, Jaz, Jake, Jonathon, Lauren, and Matt pooled their money when they saw me and Sam snuck out to buy me flowers." She limply lifted the Gerber daisies. "They look so cheerful."

"Your friends, or the flowers?" Sara asked.

"Both." Grace clarified. "They were sympathetic, of course—" she rolled her eyes, "but eventually they sort of warmed up and I was acting pretty normal, so conversation got around to college hunting and how much fun Homecoming was last weekend. They said something about Lauren's mom giving them hell at the afterparty—and they sort of apologized there, but that was it. They kept giving me weird, sidelong looks, though. It was just awkward. I'm going to see them again Friday night."

"What time are we meeting Grandma and Grandpa?" Jules said, looking hard at her sister.

"About fiveish. They're coming to the hotel. They want to go to the Olive Garden." Both girls rolled their eyes, then smiled, at Sara's statement.

The rest of the afternoon was spent showering and primping for Maggie and Nathan. As Sara stood in her robe and contemplated the two pairs of pants and four shirts she'd brought, Grace smiled and said incredulously, "Are you nervous about seeing Grandma and Grandpa?"

"Well—yeah—a little. I haven't seen them since I was—28? 27? Somewhere in there. Before I moved to Vegas. Other than that, I've gotten a Christmas card from them each year, and then I've written them a letter thanking them for the card and giving them updates. I want them to feel that I'm doing okay."

"Don't you feel animosity towards them over what happened?" Jules clipped a necklace around her neck.

"No. Do you find that surprising?"

"Yes. They kicked you out, after all. They left you high and dry, all alone, when you were eleven. They might as well have put a noose around your neck. They put you in _foster_ care."

Sara turned. "What all do you guys know—about my past with your family?"

They looked at each other. Jules spoke first. "Mom sat us down, before we moved in with you. We'd known beforehand, a little—about your parents. Mom sat us down, and told us the whole story: your parents, and your brother. Do you know where he is?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't think I'll ever be ready to see him again. I found him once—I was twenty-two. He was recovering coke dealer in LA. I'm never going to see him again."

"What about your mother?" Grace said softly.

Sara shrugged. "She didn't get a very long sentence, considering—anyways, ten years. She got out when I was in college. I got a letter from her and all. She was—soulless, I guess. I tried to see her a few times. I really did try. She moved out of California. She said it was too hot, and there were too many memories and everything. She wanted to live somewhere green—that's what she told me. She wanted to escape the memories and forget everything. She moved to northern Idaho, to ski country. I went up there a few times, but there was nothing there. She was empty. We didn't have anything in common but we tried. Finally, she wrote me to tell me she couldn't see me anymore. Mom said that there were too many memories that were painful that included me. I was twenty at the time. She died when I was twenty-five in a car accident."

"I'm sorry—Sara, we've been so dumb. I don't think Mom even knew that. We haven't paid any attention to you at all." Jules said.

"It's fine, girls. Honestly. It's all water under the bridge. In the past. And your grandparents—they did the best that they could, under the circumstances. It was a tough, shitty situation. I used to blame them. I used to blame everyone and everything. I just—got over it. You guys coming out to live with me—that was sort of the final step."

"Like, everything came full circle? Like in a novel?" Jules questioned.

"I—guess. If you want literary references. But it wasn't their fault, period. Let's just make this an enjoyable dinner."

Almost as if on cue, the phone buzzed. "Yes. Thank you. Send them up." Grace got to the phone first. "They're coming." She hung up.

"Great," Sara rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not ready." She threw on a silk navy blouse and slim black slacks with grey pinstripes.

There was a soft, smart rap on the door. Sara unchained it, opened it. "Nathan. Maggie." She smiled broadly and sadly at her aunt and uncle. "Come in. It's wonderful to see you."


	22. 22

Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."

Well, this is it. The final chapter. Thank you all so much for caring about this story! Your feedback provided a ton of positive support as I tried to figure out what needed to happen next. No promises about a sequel, but I'm definitely trying! Be patient. I hope you all enjoy this!

* * *

The pace of the days picked up as the funeral approached, tumbling and whirling into a blur. Sara and the girls decided to go down to San Francisco for the day on Thursday—eating in Chinatown, visiting the Wharf, and generally being tourists. She remembered how much she loved California, everything about it. She even told the girls some stories about her earliest days in Tomales with her parents. They ate again with Maggie and Nathan that night—the two were almost as Sara remembered them from seven years ago. Maggie was quite small, with Lilly's coloring, hair and beautiful eyes. Grace had her delicate heart-shaped face and features. Nathan was long and lean, and closely resembled Sara's mother. He and Lilly had several features in common. He looked very austere in his old age, something Sara would have never imagined. Both of them wore haunted looks akin to those of Holocaust survivors. Sara could not imagine burying two of your children.

Dan, his wife Katrina, and their children arrived late Thursday night and stayed in the same hotel as Sara, Jules, and Grace. The boys, Paul and Topher, were both in college; their daughter Madeleine was a year younger than the twins. They were all very quiet and unsure of themselves.

Friday morning came too early, bringing a robotic Grace and a despondent Jules. Jules didn't get out of bed until well after noon; Grace stiffly went through the motions of getting ready without speaking to anyone. Doug and his wife Diana, their children Dylan and Delaney, arrived Friday morning.

Nick called Friday morning. "I just—I wanted to see how things were going," he said tentatively, perfectly cognizant of their minor fight at the airport.

"They're going as well as I thought they would." Sara's feelings of exhaustion and sadness mixed into a wonderful cocktail of exasperation and sharpness. She sat down on the bed. "It was never going to be successful."

"Sara, please." Nick's tone was more concerned than reprimanding. "How are _you_ doing—not how it's doing."

"I'm fine." She said, a little too quickly. She reconsidered and relented. "I haven't really thought about it. Please don't make me think about it. It's the last thing on my mind for a reason." She remembered her reservations about him in the first place—Nick cared a lot more than she was used to. "Please. Let's talk about something else, if you want to talk."

"Don't you want to talk?" he probed softly.

"Nick, please." She said, flopping backwards and putting her hand over her

abdomen. "Lab gossip. How's Greg? Who's covering for me?"

"Warrick and I have been on call; Grissom, Greg, and Sofia have been able to handle everything. Grissom said don't come back until you're ready."

"I should talk to the girls about that," Sara murmured, more to herself than to Nick.

"How are they doing?" Nick asked.

All of these questions were making Sara feel like a failure for not having good answers. "Nick, I don't know." She almost whined. "It's so overwhelming. So many things are happening. I don't have time to contemplate our _well-being_. Or what anyone's _feeling_. We're all on autopilot. That's just what happens when someone you're very close to dies. They've just shut down emotionally so that they can make it through the funeral. Personally, I think I have too, so excuse me for not_ knowing_ this sort of shit." She looked around, suddenly aware that Jules was still lolling in the bed next to her and Grace was doubled over, hair spraying her hair in the bathroom. "I've got to go." She said quietly, and hung up.

"That Nick?" Jules muttered from the bed.

"Yeah. It was." Sara sat up. "Listen, girls, I completely forgot you were in here…"

"It's okay." Grace spoke up. "Really." She flicked the blow dryer on.

The visitation was starting at five; the obituary had run both Thursday and Friday and the funeral director informed the girls that Lilly's former coworkers had already sent gifts. Maggie and Nathan had wanted to meet for lunch, and had even come by the room, but Sara informed them that the girls weren't ready to eat. It was true—at that point, Jules was still in bed, staring at the ceiling. Maggie and Nathan decided to go out with the boys and Sara ordered room service. Jules didn't even touch her Chicken Caesar Wrap and Grace said she might puke if she tried eating.

The visitation started at six; an ashen Maggie and a tight-faced Nathan came to pick them up at four-thirty. Jules had finally gotten out of bed at three and looked very pretty in her tulip skirt, asymmetrical top, and ballet flats.

"Ready?" Maggie said quietly. She looked neat and pat in a dark green pantsuit. "You all look very nice." She ran her eyes over Grace's black layer skirt and gemmed-up slide thongs. "Are you sure flip-flops are appropriate?" The words were almost involuntary.

"They're fine." Sara said quickly as Grace flinched. "Let's get going."

The visitation had quite a lot of people; the twins were the only family members who recognized anyone. One or the other of them kept pulling Sara into conversations—with Lilly's former boss, their old next-door neighbor, a teary friend. Sara found that the connection from her tongue to her brain wasn't functioning most of the time. She nodded, smiled sadly, and found another group of people with more memories of Lilly.

About two-thirds of the way through the visitation, Sara saw her first familiar face of the night: Nick. He was dressed handsomely in a conservative dark suit; his hair was beginning to flop over his forehead again. "Nick," she said, reaching up to embrace him. He hugged her tightly around the waist. "You didn't have to come. I even told you to stay at home." She chided.

"Sar." He searched her face. "I know. I just—I thought it was right. I…It was a hunch. I packed and booked a flight about five minutes after hanging up with you. You aren't mad are you? You don't think I'm being too overprotective or patronizing?"

Sara felt ridiculously pleased and touched. "No. It's wonderful...Thank you."

"Nick!" Jules came up behind them, smiling with relief. "When did you get here?"

"About two minutes ago." He hugged. "God, Jules," he whispered. "You have no idea how strong you are."

The words caught Jules by surprise after an evening of 'You poor thing.' "Thank you," she whispered. "Where are you staying?"

Nick grinned his trademark sheepish grin. "Actually, in your hotel. I knew which one it was—" he shrugged. "So I went there and checked in." He looped an arm around Sara's waist. Sara absentmindedly played with his fingers.

"Nick?" Grace had extracted herself from her high school friends who had shown up at the last minute, nervously fidgeting in their businesslike attire. "You came out? I thought Sara told you to stay at home."

"I did." Sara smiled fondly up at him. "He came out anyways."

"Hey, Grace." He moved to hug her, and she slid into his embrace. "Staying strong?"

She nodded, a bit nervously. "Yeah. I think so. Margaret—back home Margaret—said keeping it together for people during a funeral is easier than you might expect." Nick's arm re-relaxed back around Sara's waist, his hand resting on her hip. She didn't know why, but she just felt so wonderful and strong and unburdened whenever Nick was near her.

"Girls—" Maggie came over, and it was obvious she wanted to know whom Nick was, since she lacked a reason for calling out to them. "Mr. Bartow is leaving. You should say good-bye to him." Mr. Bartow had been Lilly's boss.

"Alright." Jules nodded. "Grandma, this is Nick."

"Nick. Pleased to meet you. Maggie Cohen, Lilly's mother. Are you a friend of…Sara's?" she looked appraisingly at Nick's hand—the one around Sara's waist.

"Yes, Aunt Maggie. I should have made the introductions. This is Nick Stokes, my boyfriend. He flew out a few hours ago…I didn't know about it."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cohen." Nick stuck out his freehand.

"Maggie, please." She said. He seemed to have passed muster. "How did you and Sara meet?"

"We're coworkers in Las Vegas, Aunt Maggie. We've known each other for about five or six years. Lilly met him; she liked him a lot." Sara swiftly brought the conversation back to where it was supposed to be.

The visitation was supposed to end at nine but people lingered until about ten-thirty. The family finally drooped back to the hotel. Nick kissed Sara a bit too long than Sara would have preferred (at least in front of the girls) and hugged both girls tightly before retreating to his room. The girls sat on their bed and quietly rehashed the mourners for almost an hour before falling asleep in their clothing.

The next day dawned with mockingly good weather: a light California breeze, an impossibly blue sky that extended forever, temperatures perfect for the first week in October. The girls awoke and showered, and put on their dresses. Grace's was a beautiful full-skirted sleeveless dress made of floaty chiffon, with a plunging front and back that layered and ruched. It hit her knees, keeping it just casual enough. She completed the outfit with kitten heels. Privately, Sara had wondered if it was appropriate—it was very dressy. Also, it was expensive. _Would Lilly have permitted her to buy it_? Sara couldn't help but wonder. Jules wore a fitted halter with a corset front that flared outwards to her knees made of raw silk. It was simple and stunning. They looked too pretty to be going to a funeral.

Nathan knocked on the door then, looking thin and like he hadn't gotten much sleep. "Good morning." He said awkwardly. "The car is here. The boys, their families—they're all ready to go."

"Alright." Sara said softly, turning to the girls. "Guys? It's time to go."

The girls looked at each other, then hugged tightly. They gripped each other's hands and walked towards Sara and Nathan, their eyes downcast.

Everyone else, including Nick, was waiting downstairs in the lobby. They milled nervously, unsure of what to say. The other five cousins grouped together and looked at their toes when the twins approached. The funeral parlor had arranged for three large silver sedans to take everybody down to the church. The funeral was to start at ten; there was a lunch being provided by former friends following the service in the fellowship hall.

Sara was shocked to see the parking lot full, cars angled into the streets, and a couple groups of people waiting outside for a few last minutes before the service started. Those people headed in as soon as they saw the cars pull up. There were easily one hundred fifty people there. They nodded deferentially to the family as they passed. One of a group of random girls—Sara remembered being told it was the parlor director's three daughters—handed each of them a program. Sara fingered through it. Nathan walked in first, Maggie holding tightly to his arm and looked around slightly uncomfortably. The girls walked next, still huddled tightly together. Sara was next. She was surprised when Nick slid his fingers into hers. She looked up at him and smiled. Doug and Dan and their families followed. As soon as they were seated, an awkward organ version of "Turn, Turn, Turn" began to blast.

Sara rarely paid attention in church; it was simply easier to zone out and forget your location. She wasn't nearly as religious as the girls; religion was something that you needed to either be born into or be able to suspend your skepticism enough to truly believe. Sara had had a childhood based on survival and stability and concrete realistic things, and thus had little use for things like faith and an omnipresent God. She was a scientist, and her work exposed her to the worst aspects of humanity on any given day. She did not do religions or religious places well.

Startled out of her reverie, Sara scooted her knees sideways to let the girls out of the pew. The minister—preacher? pastor?—had finished the opening blessing or remarks or whatever they were called. The girls were going to speak now—a verse and a few remarks each, nothing like the eulogy that the minister/pastor/preacher was going to deliver in a few minutes.

The girls seemed put-together as they stepped up the microphone. They angled in so that they both had an equal chance of being heard in the microphone. They shared an awkward look. Jules cleared her throat and began to speak first, in a loud, but scared, wavering voice.

"First off, my sister and I would like to thank everyone for coming here today. You didn't have to and we know most of you and you have things—things to do and places to be, and the fact that you came to remember Mom and support us really does mean a lot. Grace and I have a lot of extended family that we know loves us, but we're officially orphans now. It's actually a lot scarier than _Annie _would have you believe, and the fact that all of you came and the fact that Mom didn't go without a fight is really comforting right now." She looked sadly down at her fingers. "Anyways. We've both scoured the Bible and we have verses to read and things to say and everything, so...here goes." She took a deep breath, then fingered through the Bible. "I've chosen something from Romans. I never really discussed the Bible with Mom, but I know that she liked the New Testament a lot better than the Old. Anyways, this is Romans 5:1-5. _Therefore,_" she intoned, "_since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us._" Jules looked up. "Mom—suffered a lot through her life. When she was younger, her family life was tough. Her parents—my grandparents—are good, honest people, who, like Job, often were dealt an unfair hand. Mom's only sister, Leslie, died many years ago from a leukodystrophic disorder. Leslie never really got to have a happy life, and this darkened Mom's whole youth. Still, Mom saw blessings in things like this and tried to see the positive side of things. She tried to be good and helpful to her parents, and to enrich Leslie's short life. Mom wasn't perfect—this plan backfired a lot. _A lot_. Things got a little happier for her when she got older—she married a man that, until the day she died, she maintained that she had loved him a lot. Unfortunately, his love wasn't as strong as hers; he was essentially a weak man who got caught up with bad people. He caused my mother a lot of grief, but she always tried to look on the bright side. 'After all,' she used to tell us, 'after all, he gave me you two. You two are my greatest blessing on earth.' This way of looking at things always made me feel internally guilty, actually, because I thought that love in general was something to be earned, to be worthy of—and I never felt worthy of it. My grades could be higher, I could be prettier, I could be kinder. It wasn't until after she got sick that I realized that love just _is_, and doesn't have parameters or expectations.

"Still, things were worse after Dad and Mom got a divorce. We never saw him, so it was very confusing for us, but Mom was now a single, working mother in an area that didn't have single, working mothers. She had to be very strong, both for her and for us. But everything was a tradeoff in her life, since she didn't have anyone to split the load. There could be a presentation in Tokyo, where she would be honored as a speaker, or there was Grace's dance recital. Things like that. It would have been very easy for her to get discouraged, and I'm sure she did, but she did it privately. Grace and I weren't the easiest teenagers to raise, but she did it well. Things were always tough, but they had been looking up in the past few years. Grace and I were still sometimes tough, but we had passed our whiney, pseudo-rebellious stage in ninth grade. Mom had gotten several promotions, had more flexibility. Grace and I were going to go away in about a year—then she could have a personal life back. Grace and I dreamed about her meeting someone, sharing the rest of her time with. She wasn't very old; too old to have more children of course, but she could still have fun." Jules looked down sadly to gather her strength for the rest of the speech. "But then the cancer came. This was going to be her toughest fight yet, the one where her faith would be tested the most. It was tested, yes, and she knew that she was going to die. But, instead of killing her faith, it gave her faith a new rebirth. She now had something primal and fierce to fight for, to believe in: she had to make sure that Grace and I were safe. From the moment the diagnosis came back, she mentally flipped from fighting for survival to fighting for Grace and me. She moved us to Las Vegas to make sure someone would look after us. She tried fervently to pass on her remaining wisdom. I think, that by about July or so, right before we moved, she didn't care if she lived or died, so long as she could get everything she needed to across to us. Of course, she didn't. There aren't enough hours in eternity for that to have happened. But she wasn't scared of dying, she tried, she went down fighting. And, I think the only reason she was able to die—because Mom would never die without a clear conscience—was that she had faith in God and faith in us that everything would be okay. If Mom was a lesser person, she might still be hanging by a thread and suffering. But, through it all, Mom's faith was more of a lesson in wisdom than anything else she could have given us. She taught by example. Her amazing strength, grace, and faith are the things that I'm going to remember forever." Jules was openly crying now, and mumbled, "Thank you," as an anticlimactic ending to her speech. She looked awkwardly at her sister. Grace squeezed her hand, took a deep breath, and stepped forward. Jules kept an arm around her sister's waist. Lilly had once told Sara Grace wasn't good at making speeches, didn't like standing in front of everyone. Sara hoped everything would go well.

"Good morning," Grace started off awkwardly. "Like my sister said, thank you for coming. It really means a lot to look out from up here and see you all. Um…" she looked around, looked down, took another breath. "I'm not like Jules. I can't make speeches. I can do other things but I can't make speeches. I also don't think I'll be able to hold it together for very long. So—please—just stay with me. Thank you." She fumbled through the Bible, flicked it forward a little. "I'm—I'm going to read one of my mother's favorite passages. It's from Matthew, chapter six, versus 19 through 21. _Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break or steal. For where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also._" She looked up and closed the Bible. "Mom—was always very busy. She had to be. She had a demanding, productive job and two daughters all on her own. She had commutes and bosses and parent teacher conferences and swimming carpools. She had a lot of responsibility. She wasn't one of those people who stopped, every day, to contemplate her gifts on Earth and be happy with what God gave her. She got stressed a lot. She rarely slowed down to stop and smell the roses—she didn't have time. I think a lot of the time she sort of had a 'what am I doing?' feeling and sort of felt like she was spinning her wheels in place and got really frustrated with everything.

"Though Mom's life was consumed by the small things, the thing that kept her going was her perspective, her attitude, and her values. Mom was great at balancing things and finding the balance. She was able to avoid going completely crazy by maintaining balance and perspective. She knew it could be worse, but she also knew she couldn't change her lot, so she was determined to make the best of it. She had a core set of values and beliefs that couldn't be crossed by anyone, and this gave her structure. This way, _she_ wasn't consumed by the small things and made into less of a person. She was sort of above everything—as mine and Jules' lives swirled and it was easy for us to get caught up in the current, she was always able to see and think clearly, even in her darkest moments.

"Again, Mom wasn't perfect. She got frustrated and angry really easily. But—she didn't let it get to her most days, or at least she didn't show it. She always considered her most important role to be strong for the two of us. And this way, her treasure—those things she loved most dearly—was never pecked away by moths and rust and thieves. She was able to live a fuller life because of this. And, because her life was so full, she died without regrets. And I think that's the best way to go." Grace was crying, but it was silent and slow—just fat tears running down her face as she spoke. Jules still had a tight grip on her sister and a scared, shocked look on her face. "So, anyways. Yeah. Thank you all for honoring Mom. It's nice to know that her hard work didn't go unnoticed." The twins looked at each other, nodded, and walked down quietly. Sara shifted her thighs and they scooted into the pew.

The eulogy was boring; Sara actually tried to concentrate this time through but ended up being filled with an aching pain of loss somewhere around her chest cavity. Nick's face was very tight and white, and his grip on her fingers tightened periodically. It was then time for a hymn, Sara flipped through the book, found the song, but couldn't find her voice. She stood mute as the congregation's off-key voices crescendoed into the refrain. Suddenly, the tears began to drip down, plopping with a satisfied sound onto the paper-thin pages of the hymnal. Nick noticed but didn't look at her; he began to move his thumb in concentric circles around her arm. Sara rested her head against his shoulder. It stayed there for the rest of the service. She felt so numb.

Sara had never been to what Maggie deemed a 'funeral luncheon,' where the family greeted everyone. Sara stood next to Maggie, shaking hands and trying to smile as Maggie explained Sara's relationship to the family. They stood in front of the long buffet table; people shook their hands before grabbing a pulled pork sandwich or fresh fruit. There was even a cake, chocolate with white frosting and no message on it, provided by the women of the church. The girls got most of the attention—everyone was saying things like "You're so brave," and "What a wonderful speech—your mother would have been proud."

Finally, though, the last guest petered through. Maggie took a deep breath—everyone was doing a lot of sighing—and set her shoulder back. Very softly, she said, "This is so much harder than I imagined. With Leslie—we had sixteen years to prepare. We were grateful every day she was alive, every time she did something minute. And, by the end—there was so much pain. It was easy to say she was in a better place and that she was better off there. Now, though—" Maggie looked pained, "it's Lilly. Lilly was always so quick, so smart, so precocious. She was easy to let grow up—it was almost a relief because she was so self-assured and adultlike. She never strayed. She was always going to be okay and work herself out. And she was always going to do good things in the world. She was so amazing. With the boys, there was never such awe. They were so normal, it was so comforting. They were what I had expected out of children. I'm not a remarkable person, Sara, I wanted ordinary children who didn't struggle or succeed too much. I hadn't. But with both Lilly and Leslie—every day, I could look at them in awe. They both were so amazing. They made it harder but they made it more joyful. And then there is you—I just I guess had a knack for raising such strong smart women who survived and beat the odds. I just—I didn't expect Lilly to go, too. Losing you first, especially because of my own doing, was hard. Losing Leslie was even tougher. I never imagined I'd have to lose Lilly too." In the dim, awkward light her face was more lined than Sara remembered—lined with seventy-five years of life and journeys and destinations. Each line had a story, a hardship, a joy, a memory. Sara compulsively hugged her, very tightly.

"You never lost me," Sara said. "You saved me, you know. Everything that I am now—part of it's my parents, of course, but a lot of the good came from you and Uncle Nathan and, lately, Lilly and Grace and Jules."

"Sara—" Maggie looked up at her imploringly, "I don't think I've ever really apologized for the way things ended. It was, truly, my fault. I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't take it anymore. I'm so sorry I wasn't strong enough. But, baby—" she touched Sara's cheek, as if being enthralled for the first time by a new baby, "you were. You really were. You've done your uncle and I so proud—especially now. You didn't have to. We owe you so much." Sara hugged her aunt tightly again, feeling less numb and empty, but still open and hurt.

The lunch wrapped up by two; the family had the inurnment at seven, just as the sun was setting. The church ladies boxed up the food for them, implored them to eat later, but nobody was actually planning on it.

The five hours passed slowly. Most of it was spent in the car—it was just slightly over two hours from Sacramento to the cemetery in Inverness, where Lilly had grown up. The cemetery was gorgeous—near the ocean, in one of the prettiest sections of town. Sara could hear the ocean waves lulling and breaking in the distance, though she could not see them.

One of the boys somehow rigged up a boombox and played Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah," which generally made Sara feel as if she was on a movie set. The haunting melody did nothing to improve the mood or to comfort the remaining souls.

The ceremony was short: a few words from the minister, then they all threw white lily petals onto the grave before each taking a turn with the shovel. They stood the entire time.

After the urn was lowered and covered with the basic dirt (the groundskeeper would finish the job off) they all stood for a while, then the boys began to drift. Then, Nick leaned in close and said he was going to go try and see the ocean. Finally, Nathan took Maggie's arm and led her off, ostensibly to show her the view. Only the girls and Sara were left, staring down into the gaping hole, their final connection to a tangible Lilly covered by dirt. It was over. It was final. It was reality.

Grace finally turned and tilted her face upward, let the ocean breeze swirl around it. "Mom always did love the ocean."

"Yeah." Jules said quietly, turning into the wind. "It's nice that she can hear it from here. It's very peaceful. The wind—the ocean—the sun. Everything simple that Mom loved is here."

"It's comforting." Grace agreed.

"I wish it had an ocean view." Sara finally spoke up. "That would be really nice."

Grace and Jules looked at each other. "I think it's better this way." Jules finally said. "It's more like a promise from God of what's to come."

Sara turned then, to face the girls, to face the wind.

And, inexplicably, she felt comforted.

THE END


End file.
